


stack the deck with wild cards

by homelywenchsociety



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Abortion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Mutual Pining, One Night Stands, Romantic Comedy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex, alternate universe - obvious child fusion, i cannot emphasize how much they do not have a kid together in this, whatever the opposite of kidfic is this is it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homelywenchsociety/pseuds/homelywenchsociety
Summary: The situation with Cassian is complicated even before Jyn finds out she's pregnant, but deciding to get an abortion should really be the last straw for him, right? If there was any chance he'd still want to date her, she thought it had to be long gone by now. And yet he always finds a way to surprise her.[AKA - the Obvious Child AU you didn't know you wanted]
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 124
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this fic is about abortion! It's clearly tagged, it's in the description, and now it's here. If that's not something you want to read about or think about, you should definitely not read this fic because you will not enjoy it and that's okay! Abortions are discussed in this fic and abortions are had in this fic and, while complicated emotions around them are discussed, nobody is morally judged for considering or having an abortion in this fic. Absolutely no children are had in this fic, I want to make that absolutely clear. Also, there's some mild discussions of some unsafe sex practices too. If any of that is not your jam, use your best judgement and probably don't read any further.
> 
> I took the basic premise from the movie "Obvious Child" but I changed a lot to make it work how I wanted it to. The general tone is the same, though. I've never personally had an abortion before, so I used the Planned Parenthood website as my guide and I apologize if any details seem off, as I tried to be as accurate as possible.
> 
> Title is from 'The Fool' by Ryn Weaver. Comment moderation is on, so everybody be cool.

The reality of the current situation doesn’t hit Jyn at the doctor’s office when she gets the news or even when she’s booking her follow-up appointment. It doesn’t sink in when they tell her how much it will cost or give her the information she’ll need or the prescriptions to fill. It doesn’t hit her when she’s on the subway, heading home and texting Bodhi with numb fingers to see if he wants to have a movie night, or even when his cheery reply—replete with emojis—comes through saying he can come over tonight. 

No, the moment everything becomes real is when she’s standing in the wine aisle at Trader Joe’s, going back and forth on whether spending eight dollars on a bottle of wine so that she can drink all of it in one sitting is irresponsible when she’s pregnant but she’s also not keeping the baby. It’s only then that she starts crying. 

She’ll blame it on the hormones if anyone asks, she decides, which might even be accurate. She’s not really a crier under normal circumstances, but even if she wasn’t pregnant, she’s pretty sure draining her savings account for a medical procedure that she wouldn’t need if she had just been a little more responsible with her body would make her cry no matter how tough she thinks she is. Lucky for her, though, she lives in New York City and no one bats an eye at a crying woman in the grocery store. An older woman with a toddler in the seat of her grocery cart passes by and nods in understanding without saying a word, which is oddly comforting.

It’s the reminder that she needs to be careful about her money that talks Jyn out of buying wine for this evening (Bodhi probably wouldn’t have any and she doesn’t need to drink an entire bottle by herself under any circumstances, let alone these, even if she really really wants to), but she goes on to throw whatever snacks she wants into the cart indiscriminately because it has been a spectacularly shitty day. She spends more than she should (what else is new?) and sweats profusely trying to drag all of it back to her sixth floor apartment. She slams cabinet doors in frustration as she puts everything away and then takes the longest, hottest shower her shitty pipes in her shitty apartment will allow. When she emerges, her skin is bright pink and she pokes her stomach viciously, somehow annoyed and confused and relieved all at the same time that it gives away nothing of her current condition.

She spends too long sitting in a towel on her bed, dicking around on her phone instead of getting ready and ultimately decides Bodhi doesn’t care what her hair looks like and so she runs a comb through it and calls it done. She puts on her softest, stretchiest leggings and an ugly sweater she raided from her dad’s closet when she was a teenager that she loves because it has been washed and worn so many times that the sleeves now have holes in them that she can stick her thumbs through. It’s easily the least glamorous look she could have come up with, but she’s pregnant and she’s mad about it, so she’s going for comfort over style.

By the time the buzzer goes off, signaling Bodhi’s arrival, Jyn has managed to light a few candles and put some of the snacks she bought into bowls, so at least it looks like she put effort into some part of the evening. She presses the button to let him up and fidgets as she waits to open the door. She has to tell Bodhi as a trial run for telling…well, everyone else, basically…but a part of her wants to tell no one, deal with it by herself and pretend nothing is wrong. Of course, that would be stupid—the doctor even told her not to try and handle this by herself—but it seems more appealing than the alternative at this particular moment. It’s not possible, though. She needs someone to come with her to the appointment, at the very least, and Bodhi will do it without hesitation, that much she’s sure of.

When she hears footsteps in the hallway, she undoes the locks and opens the door. She takes a deep breath that is immediately squeezed out of her when Bodhi wraps her in a big hug.

“It’s so good to see you,” he says, rocking her a little side to side as he embraces her. “I’m so glad you suggested this! I feel like I’ve barely seen you lately.”

“I know,” Jyn says, clinging a little. Her eyes feel misty again already and that is definitely the hormones’ fault.

Bodhi pulls back to smile at her and his eyes catch on the candles and food. He gives her a suspicious look. “Okay, if this is an intervention for spending too much time with my new boyfriend, I know I deserve it but also I would have expected a much better turn out. You couldn’t even get Cassian here?”

Jyn winces at the mention of Cassian’s name but she thinks she covers it quickly with a forced smile. “It’s not an intervention,” she says as she steps around him to close the door.

“So why all the fanfare for a regular movie night?”

“What fanfare? There’s no fanfare!”

“Jyn, you put cheese puffs in a  _ bowl _ ,” Bodhi says, as if she’s being obtuse. “You’re gonna have to wash that later. You did not have to do that for me.”

It’s on the tip of her tongue to make a joke— _ I’m nesting _ —but she refrains. “It’s no big deal,” she says, instead, and gestures to the couch for him to take a seat. 

“If you say so,” he replies, still eyeing her warily and not taking the hint.

“Why don’t we sit down?” She finally asks, sounding strange and false even to her own ears. She leads the way over to the couch and Bodhi follows her, eventually lowering himself into the armchair with the same demeanor of someone approaching a wild animal.

“Jyn, seriously,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees once she’s curled up like a cat across from him, “is everything alright? You’re acting...odd.”

“Everything is fine,” she says, lightly, and hopes that saying so makes it true. “I just, uh, need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

Jyn twists her hands together nervously, not sure how to get started now that the moment is finally here. “I need you to promise you’re not going to freak out,” she says, stalling for time.

“Ah, yes, that thing everyone says when everything is, in fact, totally fine.”

“Bodhi…”

“You’re leaving New York, aren’t you?” He asks, worried. “To be closer to Saw?”

“What? No, I—”

“Oh my god, it’s not Saw, is it?! He didn’t die, did he?”

“No, Saw is fine,” Jyn says, resisting the urge to rub her temple in frustration. “I mean, he’s not  _ fine _ , obviously, he’s still sick, but he’s not—”

“Tell me you’re not quitting the band,” Bodhi interrupts. “Listen, I know things have been crazy lately, but I think—”

“Bodhi, I’m pregnant,” Jyn shouts, and the silence that follows is overwhelming.

“You’re…?”

“Pregnant. With child. Expecting,” she says, bitterly. “Yes.”

He looks like he’s been hit over the head with a mallet, which is bizarrely satisfying. She handled the news better and it was actually happening to her.

“How long have you known?” He asks, after a long time and with apparent effort. It’s not the first question she expected, but it’s not totally surprising.

“Like, five hours.”

“Five—?” Bodhi shakes his head in what she thinks is disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jyn just blinks in response. What is he talking about? “Sorry?”

“You and Reece broke up like six months ago, how did you not realize you were pregnant sooner?” He asks.

“I…Bodhi, I’m not six months pregnant,” Jyn sputters. She smacks her stomach to drive home the point, which in retrospect is a stupid move, but she’s not thinking straight. “I mean, do I look it?”

“No! No,” he says immediately. “That’s why I was so confused, but you…you haven’t been with anyone since the breakup. You would have told me.”

When Jyn says nothing in response, just bites her lip, Bodhi narrows his eyes at her. “You  _ would _ have told me, right?” He asks.

Jyn takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “I’m eight weeks pregnant,” she says, feeling close to tears again. “I found out today, I have an appointment in a few weeks to—to terminate it. I just need someone to go with me, the nurse said I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Jyn,” he says, placing his hand over hers. “Of course, I’ll go with you. I just—I’m not upset with you, you know that, right?”

She nods, even though she doesn’t feel altogether certain of it. She loves Bodhi and trusts him, more than she trusts almost anyone else, but she’s not convinced she deserves to have him be nice to her after she’s fucked things up this badly. He ought to be upset with her.

“I know,” she says, anyway. A single tear escapes, which is just perfect. “I’m upset with myself.”

“Are you okay?” Bodhi asks, delicately. “Did this person hurt you or force you in some way?”

“No, no. God, no,” Jyn says, pulling her hands free with more aggression than the act required. She wipes the tears away in annoyance. “Nothing like that.”

“Thank God,” he says, looking heavenward and everything. “Then why all the secrecy? I texted you the minute I finished hooking up with Taidu for the first time.”

Jyn laughs even as she continues crying. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“No, but...not even a braggy ‘I just got laid!’ text? I thought we were best friends!”

“We are,” she replies hastily. “I was just embarrassed.”

“Why?” He asks, intrigued. “Is this person weird? Are they famous?”

She laughs again, feeling better in spite of the bomb she’s about to drop. “No, Bodhi…”

“They’re not married, are they? Because I promise not to judge you, but come on!”

“They’re not married.”

“Good, because for a second I was worried you slept with Baze and that would definitely break up the band,” he says, solemnly.

Jyn smacks his shoulder half-heartedly. “I would never sleep with Baze,” she says. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Fine,” Bodhi says. “So, it was Chirrut, then?”

“Bodhi!”

“Well, you’re being so cryptic,” he shoots back. “If you just told me—”

“I slept with Cassian.”

Bodhi just blinks at her for a long, torturous moment. She’s never actually seen Bodhi yell at anyone before, so she doesn’t know if that’s what is about to happen but she braces herself for it anyway.

“What,” he finally says, flat like a statement and not a question.

“I had sex with Cassian and now I’m pregnant,” she says firmly, as if just admitting it out loud isn’t making her heart hammer in her chest.

“You’re pregnant with Cassian’s baby,” Bodhi says, disbelieving and Jyn winces. She’s been trying not to think of it as an actual baby, because she’s not keeping it. But if she did nothing for seven more months, she would have a baby and it would be Cassian’s, in a purely biological sense. She doesn’t admit to that line of thinking to Bodhi, though.

“Yes,” she says, instead. “Technically,” she adds, because she can’t stop herself.

“Technically? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just—Getting someone pregnant doesn’t make a man a father,” she says, with more heat than she intended. “Raising a child does. And there’s not going to be a child, so…that’s all I meant.”

“Sorry,” Bodhi says, placing his hands over hers again. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just so surprised.”

“You didn’t upset me,” Jyn replies, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s these stupid hormones, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. He moves to sit next to her on the couch, and she folds her legs up to give him room. “How did he take it when you told him?”

Jyn winces again before she can stop herself and she knows she doesn’t hide her reaction quickly enough from the way Bodhi stands abruptly. He always paces when he’s freaked out.

“Jyn, please tell me Cassian knows,” he pleads as he makes a circuit around her coffee table.

“I’ve only known for half a day! I haven’t had a chance to tell him!”

“Why would you tell me and not him?”

“You’re my best friend!”

“It’s  _ his _ baby!”

“I wanted to make sure you could come to my appointment with me,” she says, and hopes the reminder is enough to make him feel sorry for her. He only stops pacing, but that’s still an improvement. “I was hoping you’d tell me what to do,” she adds, since it’s the actual truth.

“Well, obviously, go to your appointment,” Bodhi says, sinking back onto the couch.

“No, I mean—what I should do about Cassian?”

Bodhi looks over at her, confused. “What do you mean, what should you do about him? Tell him what’s going on.”

“I know, but how?”

“Same way you told me. Use your words.”

“Can I text him?”

“Absolutely not,” he says, scandalized. “You can’t tell him you’re pregnant via text. Who raised you?!”

“Saw.”

He acknowledges that with a nod. “Fair point.”

“I bet you’re going to say I can’t leave him a voicemail either,” Jyn says.

“You’re right, but mostly because no one under the age of eighty checks their voicemail anymore,” he says, patting her knee absently.

“Really?”

“Really,” Bodhi replies. “Just...sit down with him and tell him what’s going on. Same as you did with me.”

“It’s different with you.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ different.”

“It’s not your baby I’m aborting,” Jyn says quietly. “And you love me.”

Bodhi looks over at her then, some strange mix of emotions playing out on his face. She half expects him to object and say something ridiculous like Cassian does love her, and the very idea stresses her out. When he doesn’t say that, though, she finds herself oddly disappointed.

“Cassian’s a good guy. He’ll understand,” he says, instead, as if she doesn’t know that somehow. As if that isn’t a huge part of why this situation sucks so bad. As if she isn’t mortified that she has to involve him in something like this. As if she isn’t furious with herself because this is going to blow any chance she ever had with him in the first place. As if she hadn’t already done that by hooking up with him and then never calling him afterwards. 

“I know,” Jyn says, looking down at her hands. She doesn’t actually know that—that he’ll understand. She thinks she knows Cassian fairly well, in a casual way. They’re mostly friends through Bodhi but they see a lot of each other. She suspects, from things he’s said before about politics, that he’s probably okay with abortion in a general sense, but it’s different when it’s your potential kid. She can’t actually be certain he’ll be cool with it, but she’s also not asking his permission. She just thinks he deserves to know. Or maybe she just wants an excuse to call him, for all this is the worst possible one the universe could have handed her.

“It’s just weird,” she adds, after a minute lost in thought, “for this to be the thing I call him about, after we hooked up. It feels shitty.”

“Wait, hold on,” Bodhi says, waving his hand dramatically at her. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I don’t  _ know _ what you think I’m saying.”

“Have you not talked to him since you slept with him?”

“I haven’t,” Jyn says, bracing herself. Bodhi opens his mouth to interject, so she continues quickly, stopping him. “But, in my defense, it was right before the holidays and then he was out of town for like a month, so it seemed weird to reach out, and—”

“Jyn,” he says, and his tone is so full of reproach, it shuts her up immediately. “None of those are good reasons and I think you know that.”

“It’s not like he and I talk a lot anyway,” she objects, but it’s futile, if Bodhi’s unimpressed look is any indication. “We mostly see each other at the shows and the band didn’t have any in December, so I just haven’t had the chance. That’s all.”

“Okay, so none of it had to do with your overwhelming fear of intimacy and vulnerability?”

“No…?”

“Very convincing,” Bodhi says, and Jyn shoves him. 

“Shut up,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, if that’s not what happened,” he says reasonably, “you have to tell me what did.”

“What—you want details?!”

Bodhi shrugs. “You hooked up with my roommate and didn’t tell anyone about it for almost two months. There must be a reason.”

“Maybe it was bad,” she says, petulantly.

He just gives her an arch look in reply, which she deserves. “Was it bad?” He asks, bored.

Jyn bites her lip, hard. “No,” she admits. “It actually really wasn’t.”

“Well, then. Spill!”

She sighs dramatically—more dramatically than the situation deserves, honestly, and it’s already a pretty dramatic situation. “What do you want to know?

“When did this happen?”

“By my doctor’s estimate, eight weeks ago.”

“Jyn, for the love of—!”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood,” she says, for all she was actually just trying to stall. “It was that night we played at that terrible hipster bar in November.”

“Jyn, we exclusively play at terrible hipster bars. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“It’s the one with the arcade games in the back? It’s changed names like three times this year?”

“ _ Oh _ , that place. Yeah. What  _ is _ that place’s name?”

“No clue,” Jyn says, with a shrug. “But it was at that bar.”

Bodhi’s eyes widen, though whether it’s with shock or delight or both, she’s not sure. “You hooked up with him  _ at the bar _ ?” 

“No, no. We went home together afterwards, once the rest of you had left.”

“I knew it,” he practically shouts. “I knew something was up that night!”

“You did not!”

“Yes, I did. You can ask Taidu, I definitely said something about it to him.”

Jyn waves him off, not because she’s convinced but because she’s not going to bother Taidu about something this stupid. “Whatever.”

“You still haven’t told me how it happened.”

“Do you need me to explain how sex works? Because I feel like you get the general idea.”

“No, smartass,” he says with an eye roll. “I mean, you and Cassian hang out at bars all the time together and you’ve never hooked up before. So, what happened this time?”

“Well,” Jyn says, taking a steadying breath, “you and Taidu left early for some reason and you said you were going to stay at his place. And Baze and Chirrut left right after that, because I think that’s when Baze had that terrible cold.”

“Jyn, no offense, but who cares?”

“You asked me what was different about that night! I’m explaining!”

“Okay, fine,” Bodhi allows. “It was different because we all callously abandoned you.”

“Yes, thank you! Anyway, it was just me and Cassian at the bar and I had just ordered another drink when Baze and Chirrut decided to leave and I was giving them a hard time about it and Cassian offered to stay with me for another round, so I wouldn’t have wasted my money or have to drink alone.”

“How gallant of him.”

“No editorializing,” she snaps, and Bodhi dutifully mimes locking his mouth and throwing away the key. “Anyway, we had a couple more drinks, we had sex, and now I’m pregnant. The end.”

“Fine,” he says, giving up. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. I was just interested because you’re both my friends and I love you. Also, I know how hard the break-up was on you, so I was excited that you felt comfortable enough to move on. But you clearly don’t want to talk about it, so forget it!” He pivots away from her on the couch and leans forward to grab some popcorn. “What movie are we watching, anyway?”

Jyn groans in frustration. He’s always been way too good at guilt-tripping her into anything she doesn’t want to do. “You’re such a brat!”

“What? I’m changing the subject, like you clearly want to!”

“I’m embarrassed, Bodhi!”

“I don’t see why,” he says, looking at her blankly. “Cassian is good looking and he’s not a creep. You could do way worse. You have, in fact.”

She punches him in the shoulder in retaliation. “Hey!”

“What? I mean, you dated Reece for two years and he wasn’t exactly a catch. Cassian is an improvement, in my opinion.”

“I see we’re not sparing my feelings anymore where Reece is concerned.”

Bodhi covers her hand with his own. “Jyn, that guy cheated on you for a long time, and then he broke up with you so he could be with the other woman—right before you went onstage to perform, I should mention—and he had the audacity to blame you for the cheating because you ‘didn’t give him enough attention,’” he says, with the most judgemental use of air quotes she’s ever seen. “I care about your feelings, truly I do. But I do not care about Reece and I will not pretend you aren’t way better off without him.”

“I’m not his biggest fan either,” she says, defensively. “But what does it say about me that I dated him for all that time without realizing what a dick he was?”

“That he was an even bigger scrub than we thought, because he managed to hide his true colors for so long,” Bodhi says, easily. “You’re not responsible for his actions.”

Jyn wants to believe him, and most days she already, mostly does. But sometimes she catches herself replaying the break-up in her head and the part where Reece said that if she’d really cared, if she’d really been in their relationship for the long haul, she’d have paid more attention to him and he would never have even thought about cheating. She’d left him no choice, with all her weird part-time jobs and her crazy schedule and her gigs with her silly little band all over the city in the middle of the night. If she were more together, if she knew what she wanted from her own life, she could have been there for her partner, but she was too much of a mess. Too much of a work-in-progress to be the sort of girlfriend someone wanted to be serious with.

“I know,” she says, half-heartedly. If Bodhi’s told her this once, he’s told her a thousand times. Maybe she’ll really believe it someday, but not quite yet. “It just gets in your head, when someone treats you like that. You start to wonder if you have a neon sign over your head that says you’re not really relationship material.”

“You do not have a neon sign over your head that says anything of the kind,” Bodhi reassures her, surprisingly earnestly. “If your relationship with Reece needed work, he could have brought those issues to you to resolve them. Instead, he cheated on you. He took the easy way out and then blamed you when it made him look like an asshole. That’s on him.”

Jyn sighs, hating how often she and Bodhi have to have this conversation or some variation of it. She wishes she could just magically not be upset about it anymore, but it’s not like she didn’t have trust issues before this. The situation with Reece just made them worse. That was part of the appeal of hooking up with Cassian; she wanted to get back out there and feel desirable again, but she couldn’t do it with just anybody. Cassian was safe because she knew him and trusted him, but they weren’t super close, so it’s not like hooking up with him would ruin their friendship. He knew enough of what happened with her breakup to know that it was just a rebound, but not enough about her mental state to worry about her when she initiated things between them. She didn’t need someone to worry about her; she just needed someone to take her home.

The bar had been surprisingly busy that night, probably because some local favorite band was on after their set and they had a weirdly devoted following. Even though the rest of their group had abandoned them, the spots around Jyn and Cassian at the bar quickly filled in with noisy patrons, which left them no choice but to lean close to each other when they talked. Cassian’s arm had been curled around the back of the barstool that she was perched on, not possessively but in a way that didn’t encourage anyone to interrupt them. Jyn didn’t object; she didn’t want to talk to anyone else anyway. 

Something about having Cassian’s full attention, her elbow brushing his ribs anytime she reached for her drink and feeling the warmth radiating off him in the already overly warm bar, felt nice in a way that went right to her head. She was shamelessly leaning into it, both literally—if she had curled any further into him, she would be hugging him—and figuratively—asking him personal questions she’d never bothered with before and laughing a little too loudly at his answers in a way that would have probably made him suspicious if she hadn’t distracted him by constantly touching his arm. It was the oldest trick in the book, and he must have known that, but Jyn wasn’t really in the mood to be subtle anyway.

If he was wary of her motives in flirting with him so obviously, he hadn’t mentioned any of his concerns to her. Cassian tends to be wary as a rule, which is part of why Jyn trusts him. He’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop too, just like she is. There’s a subtle understanding between them as a result. Other than that, Jyn had never given him much thought. Sure, he’s good looking, even when he comes to their gigs still in his clothes from the office, which make him look like an accountant. He’s not actually an accountant, though; he works at some organization that works with kids in the foster system, which is the sort of job that immediately put Jyn on edge when she first heard about it after he’d moved in with Bodhi. She’s technically a freelance illustrator, but since that doesn’t pay the bills with any consistency, she also works all sorts of other odd jobs to make up the difference. She doesn’t have a 401K or a high yield savings account, but she’s pretty sure Cassian does, even if he’s also probably underpaid. But he’s underpaid in the good way, the what-a-Saint way, while Jyn is underpaid in the no-one-values-your-skills, get-a-real-job way. So, at first, she’d been a little suspicious of him.

But, back then, he was Bodhi’s new roommate who also took him up on the invitation to come see his band play during one of their glamorous midnight slots at some crummy dive bar, which earned him a little respect in Jyn’s mind. When he kept showing up, she was surprised. It didn’t seem like his scene at all, but when she said as much to him one night, he’d given her a self-conscious smile and said that coming to Bodhi’s shows gave him the pretense of a social life when his co-workers asked what he did with his free time. He had a tendency to look worried or miserable when left to his own devices, but self-deprecation was a good look on him and it was nice to know he wasn’t dead serious all the time. They never became close friends after that, but Jyn always liked talking to him after the shows. 

Something changed when she was going through the break-up, though. Cassian knew what happened, of course, enough to tell her he was sorry to hear about it from Bodhi, but they didn’t exactly talk in depth about it or anything. He treated her the same as he always had. The change had come from her, honestly. She’d always thought he was attractive, in that split-second way you decide when you first see someone, but she’d never given it any thought beyond that, really. But once the initial fog of I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening lifted after the break-up, she started to notice Cassian more and think about him in a way she hadn’t before. She was disappointed if he couldn’t make it to one of their gigs. She started to appreciate the dorky work outfits he wore to the dive bar venues they played and she liked talking to him after the set, when he’d give her his full attention like she was the most fascinating person in the world.

She couldn’t tell, though, if he was genuinely interested in her or if he just thought she was hot and (now) single. If she’d been smart, she would have figured that out before hooking up with him. Instead, the universe handed her the perfect opportunity to be alone with him, without any of their friends to talk them out of it or ruin the mood and she’d taken full advantage of it. She had felt almost dizzy with the possibility of it, that she could ask him to leave with her and that he’d probably say yes. Next to her, some drunk guy stumbled up to the bar and, in his haste, accidentally and rather fortuitously shoved her even further into Cassian’s arms. He’d tightened his hold on her to catch her fall and when she’d looked up, he was glaring at the man, who was completely oblivious to having made an enemy. It was ridiculously charming, to think he was offended on her behalf, as if her honor had been threatened. Really, what was she supposed to do then, except kiss him?

He’d been surprised, at first, and who could blame him? Sure, she’d been giving the corniest, most textbook signals that she was into him all night, but she hadn’t even known she was going to actually make a move until she did it. He recovered quickly, though, which was nice, and reciprocated immediately. Jyn’s not sure what she would have done if he’d asked questions or tried to talk things through first, even though she kind of expected it from him. They’d both had a few drinks, not enough to impair them by any means but just enough to embolden them. 

His hand had come to rest on her back when she got pushed into him and she felt it flex, as if he was trying to hold her even closer. The other moved to her face as soon as she kissed him, though it was really just his thumb grazing her jaw, like he was worried she might turn away and he wanted to offer a slight incentive to stay where she was. She probably would have kept making out with him at the bar like they were college students or something, but she didn’t actually want to spend another second with the drunk patrons or the shitty band that was onstage. She wanted to be someplace else—anywhere else, really, so long as it meant she and Cassian could be alone. She pulled back, with great effort, and the look on Cassian’s face made her think he expected to be let down easy.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked, instead.

His eyebrows went up, as if that was the last thing he expected her to say. He closed his eyes, like gathering his thoughts was difficult at that moment. “I, uh—what are you asking?”

Jyn bit her lip, which was a bad habit of hers when she was nervous, but if it also happened, by pure luck, to look flirtatious, that was fine too. “I’m asking if you want to go back to your place and have sex with me,” she said, because she wasn’t about to waste time and not get exactly what she wanted out of this.

“Do I want that?” He’d asked, dumbfounded, and if she hadn’t just been having a completely normal conversation with him, she’d have worried he was drunker than she thought. But this was entirely her effect on him and it was incredibly flattering. “Do _you_?”

“I think the fact that I suggested it makes it pretty obvious what I want.”

Cassian had run his hand through his hair, clearly a nervous tic. “Yeah, but—yes, I would like that.”

He said the last bit decisively, as though he realized he might be accidentally talking her out of it with his hesitation. He needn’t have worried—Jyn has her mind made up about this—but she thought it was better to keep him on his toes than reveal that. She gave him a bright smile before turning to get the bartender’s attention. They paid their tab and got the hell out of there in record time. 

When they left the bar, it was raining lightly, barely a drizzle at this point, but there was evidence that it had stormed earlier in the evening. The small heel on Jyn’s boots brought her close enough to Cassian’s height that, even standing outside the bar, she didn’t have to strain to reach him and pull him down for another kiss. His hands came to her hips to steady her anyway and she’d have happily continued like this for a while if the bouncers by the front door didn’t wolf whistle at them and ruin the moment.

They started walking to Cassian’s apartment without discussing it, like they agreed via telepathy that no cab driver would tolerate them given their current amount of PDA. It wasn’t a far walk, though, and Jyn had internally thanked the forces of the universe for making this happen at the closest bar to Cassian’s place, because she’s sure they would have lost their nerve over the course of a lengthy subway or cab ride. Instead, they headed for his apartment in silence, more because they were focused than not having anything to say. He held her hand the whole way, as if he was afraid she’d disappear if he wasn’t touching her. While they waited for a crosswalk signal at one corner, he pulled her into his side and kissed her again, like she really needed the reminder that he was a good kisser. How could she forget?

“He’s a really good kisser,” she says, suddenly, to Bodhi, as they sit together on the couch.

Bodhi scrunches up his nose, looking disgusted. “Who? Reece?”

“No! I’m talking about Cassian!”

“Oh!” His eyes light up. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

Jyn shrugs, noncommittal. She wants Bodhi’s reassurance that she didn’t fuck things up beyond repair and this is probably the only way to get that. “I’m obviously not going to tell you  _ everything _ . But we can talk about it, a little. I guess.”

“Okay, but how good is he?”

“Is there an accepted scale I should use?”

“One to ten would suffice, I think. Ten being the best kiss you’ve ever had and one being…well, you already said it was good, so we don’t need to worry about that.”

She exhales noisily, not sure how to describe it. “I don’t know. I can’t even think of the best kiss I ever had.”

“That’s kind of sad.”

She punches him on the shoulder. “I hate you,” she says, petulantly. “It was really,  _ really _ good. Definitely an 8.5 or a 9. Maybe a 9.5.”

“Really?!”

Jyn nods, feeling awkward. “Yeah. We made out for a really long time before we…well, before anything else happened.”

She doesn’t mention that she’d almost lost her nerve, when they first got back to Cassian’s apartment. Being in his bedroom, the idea of sleeping together suddenly became real and all of her tipsy confidence evaporated. She’d been in a relationship for two years—she’d thought she and Reece would move in together whenever their leases were up, even though she hadn’t had the confidence to bring it up to him before he turned around and left her for another woman—and suddenly she wasn’t ready to be with someone else. Naturally, Cassian had picked up on her change in mood and asked her what was wrong. She lied and said it was nothing, though he hadn’t looked convinced. To prove her point, she’d kissed him again, hard, trying to psych herself up, but he’d eased back, turning their kiss into something easier and softer. He’d kissed her like that for a while, his hands in her hair and on her jaw, not reaching for her clothes or straying anywhere new. It was only after they’d continued like that for a long time that Jyn felt her nerves mellow into pleasure and then sharpen into desire again. Even though they’d kept things fairly chaste, all of that kissing had made her want more, and she clearly had to be the one to take the lead.

“And was he a gentleman with you?” Bodhi asks primly, interrupting Jyn’s thoughts.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” she says, with a frown.

“Did he…how do I put this…take care of your needs?”

“Oh. Uh, yes.”

“First?” He asks, clearly enjoying himself.

“Yes,” Jyn replies, through gritted teeth. She leaves out the fact that she’d not-so-subtly rushed them past the point of foreplay so Cassian wouldn’t get any ideas. Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, that he would have even tried something like that with her, that she got in the way of some grand plan of his to gallantly fulfill her needs before worrying about his own, but he had looked surprised when she took them straight from kissing to taking his clothes off to fucking him. Maybe it was a pleasant surprise, maybe he was relieved to find someone who didn’t expect so much effort from him. She didn’t ask. She just knew that she couldn’t handle the idea of it being unequal, of him being smug or, worse, expectant with her. She didn’t want to owe him anything, so they were going to have sex once and then she could move on. Naturally, she hadn’t counted on getting pregnant.

“I told him I was on the pill and I wasn’t,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

The way Bodhi swings around to stare at her would be funny, under any other circumstances. “Why would you lie about that?” He asks, unable to keep the judgement out of his tone.

“I didn’t  _ lie _ ,” she says. “I thought I was on the pill! I’ve been taking it for years, so I didn’t think anything of it. I forgot to get my prescription refilled a few months ago and I was like, ‘who cares?’ because Reece and I had just broken up and I was convinced I was never going to have sex again.”

“But then you had sex with Cassian!”

“I know! And I forgot I wasn’t on the pill anymore.”

Bodhi covers his eyes with his hands. “Please tell me you used a condom.”

“Cassian definitely offered,” she says, trying to sound upbeat.

“And you said, ‘yes, of course, because you’re a man I’ve never slept with before and that’s the safest way for us to have sex!’”

“No. I said, ‘it’s fine, don’t worry about it, I’m on the pill.’”

“Jyn!”

“Before you yell at me, I would like to remind you I’m already pregnant, so the worst case scenario has already happened.”

“That’s not the only reason you should use a condom!”

“I know, but I got tested for STDs when I went in for my pregnancy test and nothing has come back positive yet, so hopefully I’m not that unlucky.”

“Listen, I know you’re going through some stuff right now and I don’t want to pile on, but that was really risky,” he says, looking more serious than she’s ever seen him. “You have to promise me that you’ll be more careful.”

“I promise,” she says, feeling like a teenager being chastised. “Believe me, paying out of pocket for an abortion is a pretty great way for me to learn my lesson.”

“God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s my fault. Like you said, I wasn’t being careful.”

“That wasn’t—I’m not trying to hit your nose with a rolled up newspaper, Jyn. I’m just worried about you.”

“I know. This is why I was embarrassed. I made a complete idiot out of myself. And now I get to explain all of this to Cassian, which won’t be humiliating at all.”

“He’ll understand,” Bodhi says, with enviable levels of confidence. “He’s good like that.”

“I said I’d call him and I didn’t,” she says, trying not to cringe as she remembers how quickly she’d left after they’d had sex, how she hadn’t even looked Cassian in the eye when she promised to call. “Even if he was fine with a one-night stand, I still lied to him. I doubt he’ll be happy to hear from me, especially under the circumstances.”

“If the alternative is not hearing from you at all, I think he’d rather hear from you. No matter what the circumstances are.”

“I don’t know.”

“Jyn, you and Cassian are friends, even if you don’t think you’re particularly close. And you’ve slept together, which involves a certain level of intimacy—”

“Not the way I do it,” she jokes. Although there’s some truth to it, she thinks.

Bodhi smacks her with a pillow, which she completely deserves. “Call him or I’ll kick your ass.”

“God, fine!” She slouches down in her seat on the couch. “Do I have to do it right now?”

“God, no. I don’t want to be here for that conversation,” he says, grabbing another handful of popcorn. “Besides, you promised me a movie night. What are we watching?”

“I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t involve babies or pregnancy.”

Bodhi’s scrolling through the titles on Netflix as she speaks, nodding absentmindedly. “‘Sleepless in Seattle’?” He asks, when he lands on it.

“That totally has a baby in it!”

“The kid is, like, eight,” he argues. “And it’s not about the process of having kids!”

Jyn sighs, defeated. “Do you want to watch ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ Bodhi?”

“Yes, but I’m mostly in it for Bill Pullman.”

“Fine,” she says, settling in next to him. “I’m probably going to fall asleep in twenty minutes, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bodhi says, and hits play.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn tries to tell Cassian about the pregnancy--and the abortion--but it’s more difficult than she thought it would be. And she was already pretty sure it was going to suck.

Jyn practically wears a hole in the floor of her apartment from pacing so much, but she does eventually find the courage to tap Cassian’s name on her phone and call him. It’s mid-afternoon on a weekday and she’s gotten precisely nothing done all day because she’s been fretting about this conversation. She tries to remind herself of Bodhi’s reassurances that Cassian will be cool about all of this, but in reality, the only thing that’s actually making her feel better is the thought of getting this part over with, so she can panic about every other aspect of this situation instead.

Cassian mercifully picks up on the second ring. “Hello?” He says, cautiously.

Somehow, despite the fact that she was very intentionally calling him on the telephone, actually hearing his voice still catches her off guard. It doesn’t help that Cassian has a really nice voice, something she’s allowed to notice without it being weird because she's an amateur musician and all. He tends to be pretty quiet in general, but he’s also been know to occasionally go off on a tangent about something he really cares about—some new thing a local politician is doing that he thinks is stupid, or one of the kids he works with doing something amazing with their life that he can’t wait to share—and Jyn somehow does not get bored of listening to him, like she normally would with anyone else who tries to talk to her about politics or children. She’s happy to blame that on the whole nice voice thing and to ignore the part of her brain that’s suggesting maybe she just likes him as a person.

“Hello?” Cassian asks again, sounding more confused this time.

“Cassian, hi,” Jyn says, finally snapping out of her reverie. “It’s Jyn.”

“Yeah, I saw the name on the screen,” he says, not unkindly, and she resists the urge to smack herself on the forehead like she’s in a cartoon.

“Sorry, I, uh, didn’t know if you’d have my number saved or not,” she says, glad he can’t see the way she’s grimacing at her own stupidity.

“Of course I do,” he replies, matter-of-factly. “What can I do for you? Is everything alright?”

Jyn panics at the question and she can’t keep the bristle out of her tone. “Why would something be wrong?”

“I just—I thought something might have happened to Bodhi,” he says, and his tone is hard to read. “You and I don’t normally talk on the phone much.”

_ We don’t talk much at all _ , Jyn thinks, petulantly, even though she’s the one who said she would call after they hooked up and then didn’t, so whose fault is it really? If she wanted them to talk more, she could have made that happen and she didn’t. And moreover, she supposes he probably would be her first call if something had happened to Bodhi. They live together after all and, beyond that, Cassian just seems like he’d be good in a crisis. She could imagine leaning on him—trusting him, that is—in a time of stress. Not now, obviously. But in a theoretical situation in an alternate universe where she hadn’t ruined whatever relationship they have or could have with her numerous issues, he’d be the guy to call, she thinks.

“Uh, no, I guess we don’t,” she admits. “Bodhi’s fine, though. So, no worries there.”

“Oh, good,” he replies, with obvious relief. “So, what do you need?”

It doesn’t sound dismissive, but she can’t see him and so she can’t be absolutely certain. Maybe he’s annoyed to hear from her after all this time. It would make sense, but the possibility of it still stings. She forces herself to push past it and keep going.

“I just wanted to tell you—” Jyn is cut off by some murmuring in the background of the call followed by some loud rustling, as if Cassian was blocking the phone’s mic. It only continues for a few seconds, before the sound on the line is clear again.

“Sorry about that, Jyn,” Cassian says, sincerely. “My co-worker needed to ask me something before our meeting and she didn’t realize I was on the phone.”

“Oh,” Jyn says, and that stops her short. She figured he was at work and that wasn’t really the ideal place for him to get this news, but she has no idea what kind of hours he works and she couldn’t bear to put it off any longer. But now, it seems like a terrible idea.

“Do you—I thought you had your own office,” she says, for all it’s a complete non-sequitur. She thought he’d at least be alone when she told him the news.

“Me?” He asks, as if she could mean anyone else. “No, it’s an open floor plan at the office. I just have a cubicle.”

“Oh,” she says again. The idea of breaking this news to Cassian when he’s in full view of his co-workers and won’t be able to process it in private suddenly feels so cruel to Jyn that she can’t even think what to say next.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, no. Not at all. I’m just—I always pictured you as having your own office. Not that I picture you—I don’t think about your work, that is. I just, when I called you, I was imagining an office, that’s all.”

“Right,” Cassian says, evenly. Jyn could sink into the floor, she’s so embarrassed. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

Jyn’s brain is going into panic mode, which is the only explanation for why she blurts out what she does. “I just wanted to know if you were free for dinner,” she practically shouts.

“Dinner?”

“Yes, dinner,” she replies, cheerily, even as the reality of what’s she’s asked hits her like a freight train.  _ That sounds like a date, you moron _ , her brain shouts at her.

“Me and you?” 

Jyn closes her eyes against the embarrassment she feels, both at her suggestion and at his incredulity. “Yeah, me and you,” she answers, and with her eyes shut, she can allow herself to enjoy the idea of it, of getting dinner with him. Like they’re just normal people that like each other and everything is simple.

“When?”

“Is tonight too soon?”

“I don’t have any other plans,” he says and Jyn thinks he might sound nervous. It makes her feel incredible and terrible at the same time. “Did you have somewhere in mind?”

“Um, there’s this Thai place in my neighborhood that I really like,” she says, naming the first place she can think of. Besides, if she has to have this awful conversation over dinner, it might as well be at a place she likes. “If you like Thai food, that is.”

“Yeah. Yes. That sounds great.”

“I’ll send you the address. Could you meet me for 7 o’clock?”

“I’ll have to come directly from work, but if that’s okay with you, 7 is fine.”

“Totally okay with me,” she says, absently thinking of the sweater-and-a-button-up ensembles he normally wears to work and if that’s what he’ll wear to the restaurant tonight. She wonders if he’ll have the sleeves rolled up in the way she finds stupidly attractive for no discernible reason. 

“Great,” he says, brightly and then clears his throat. “I’ll see you then.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Jyn replies, and then wishes she could take it back. She always likes seeing him, but under the circumstances, it sounds so cheery and fake.

Cassian, for his part, seems caught off-guard, but he recovers fairly quickly. “I am too.”

They eventually run out of pleasant almost-sign-offs and have to actually say goodbye and hang up, which leaves Jyn in her empty apartment to continue freaking out. Why had she put this conversation off even further? Obviously, telling him at work was not a great plan, but tricking him into thinking they’re going to have a nice dinner—maybe he even thinks she was asking him out on a date—is somehow worse. The only advantage to this new plan is that he’s very unlikely to cause a scene in a public place. Then again, Jyn has a hard time imagining Cassian causing a scene anywhere. He’s so calm and collected most of the time. That bodes well for how he’ll take her news, but she can’t really be sure.

After texting him the address for the restaurant, Jyn copes with the stress of her impending dinner by trying on literally every outfit she owns, in order to figure out what to wear. It can’t be too fancy or too sexy because she needs Cassian to know it’s not a date, but she also doesn’t want to look casual or frumpy, though she doesn’t examine her motives for wanting to look good for this awkward dinner too closely. By the end of this process, most of her clothing is in a pile on her bed that she will have to clear off later in order to go to sleep—a problem for future Jyn, as always—and she’s selected a pair of black overalls that seem to be the item with the least paint on them in her entire wardrobe to wear over a cropped sweater. It’s a cute outfit that doesn’t explicitly scream “DATE NIGHT” but also doesn’t make her feel hideous, which, for all her pregnancy isn’t far along, is a hard feeling to come by, thanks to the hormones.

She picks out shoes to match and even puts on some makeup and tries to get her bangs to look normal, which kills enough time that, if she walks to the restaurant instead of being lazy and taking a cab, she might actually beat Cassian there, even though he’s aggressively early to everything. After the obligatory search for wherever she left her keys—a daily ritual for her—she sets out for the restaurant feeling only a little queasy with what she assumes are nerves.

The restaurant is busy enough for a weekday evening but Jyn only has to wait a few minutes for a table. She warns the waiter she’s expecting someone and orders an iced tea while she waits. She bobs one knee up and down furiously underneath the table, anxious for Cassian to show up and secretly wishing he won’t so she can just go home and pretend none of this is really happening. Though she tries not to, she still watches the door like a hawk, practically jumping out of her seat every time someone walks through the main entrance.

Cassian shows up at 7:02 PM, leaving Jyn very little time to freak out alone, for all it felt like an eternity. She’s watching as he comes through the door and speaks to the hostess, so she sees him run a hand through his hair in what she assumes is a nervous gesture and her throat goes very dry, both at how attractive he is and at the idea of fucking up his night like she’s about to. It’s just then that the hostess points in her direction and Cassian’s gaze lands on her, which means Jyn gets to watch as his polite but guarded look melts into something more familiar and affectionate and relieved. He’s  _ relieved _ to see  _ her _ , she thinks, incredulously, even as she waves at him. Did he think she would stand him up? Did he think he imagined their entire phone call?

“Hi,” he says, a little breathlessly, as he reaches the table.

Jyn stands abruptly from her seat, for lack of anything better to do and leans into him at the same moment he leans towards her. She has a brief moment of panic where she thinks he might kiss her—not that a kiss from him would be a bad thing, generally speaking, but she would feel guilty under the circumstances—and so she swerves gracelessly to the left. Her mouth collides with the side of his face as he wraps an arm around her in a loose hug and she realizes, belatedly, that she completely misjudged what he was going for. She doesn’t allow herself to linger in the embrace, even if she kind of wants to, and pulls back quickly, before she can get used to the warm weight of his hand on her back.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he says, when she’s dropped back into her seat and he’s busied himself with removing his jacket and scarf.

Jyn resists the urge to laugh at that, knowing he’s being completely earnest. He was  _ two minutes _ late, that’s nothing, she wants to say, but she waves off his apology without a word.

“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” She asks, instead.

“No, not at all,” he says, as he sits across from her. “The train was just delayed.”

“As always.”

He smiles at that, leaning forward on his elbows on the table, and it makes Jyn wistful for the version of tonight where they are just out to dinner for fun. In that version, the only thing she has to be nervous about is if they’ll go home together at the end of the night. In reality, she knows there’s no chance of that happening, but some part of her longs for it. She wishes she’d called him two months ago, back when things were simple—or, at least, simpler—and asked him to this same restaurant. It could have been nice, feeling these nerves for all the good reasons instead of why she has them now.

“So, I was—”

“Have you—?”

They both speak at the same time and Cassian’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughs, which is so unfairly cute that Jyn can’t even laugh in return at their shared mishap. 

“You go,” he says.

“I, uh—” Jyn starts to say, but she’s interrupted by the waiter returning with her drink and asking if he can get Cassian anything.

“Just water, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” Jyn asks before she can stop herself. She doesn’t know why she thinks adding alcohol to this situation will help, but she also thinks he might want to drink once he hears her news. “It’s my treat.”

Cassian looks puzzled by this, but his features clear after a second. “I’m good, really,” he says, before turning back to the waiter. “Thank you.”

The waiter hurries off, leaving them alone again. Cassian opens his menu and begins scanning through the first section, before looking up at her with obvious concern.

“Do you already know what you’re getting?” He asks.

“Oh,” Jyn says, flattening her palm on her unopened menu. “Yes, but just because I always get the same thing here. Their pad see ew is really good.”

Cassian nods, as if this is fascinating information to him. “I’m going to have to read through the menu, unfortunately,” he says, apologetically.

She makes an exaggerated hand gesture that is meant to bat his apology away but in truth conveys absolutely nothing. “Take your time,” she says, to clarify.

Cassian reading his menu gives Jyn some time to regroup and also to note that he is, in fact, wearing a navy blue cable knit sweater over what looks to be a light blue button-up. The sleeves aren’t rolled up to his elbows, which is disappointing, but she assumes that’s because it’s freezing outside. He’s also biting his lip as he concentrates on reading, which is simultaneously very cute and completely hot. She realizes she’s been staring at him intently half a second after Cassian does.

“What’s the matter?” He asks, looking embarrassed.

“No, it’s—nothing!”

“I should be making conversation, shouldn’t I?”

“No, don’t worry about that,” Jyn says, hurriedly. It’s not like she can just tell him she was staring because he’s stupidly handsome. “I just got lost in thought for a second.”

“Do you come here often?” He asks, completely sincerely and Jyn laughs before she can stop herself.

“Sorry,” she says, when she’s regained her self-control. “That’s just such a line. I know you didn’t mean it that way, but—”

Before she can finish her sentence or Cassian can defend himself like he clearly wants to, something lands at their feet with a thump and a rattle. Cassian leans down to retrieve it and returns with one of those baby toys with different bits that all make different noises or have different textures. It’s done up entirely in bright primary colors and seems to have a smiling puppy’s head at the very top. A screech from the table behind them alerts Jyn to the item’s true owner.

Cassian twists in his chair to offer the toy back to a chunky toddler with a mop of riotous curls who’s sitting in a high chair at the next table over. “I take it this is yours,” he says, very seriously to the baby, who squawks delightedly at the sight of the toy.

The child’s mother, sitting with an older child on the other side of the table, gives Cassian a grateful smile. “Can you say ‘thank you?’” She asks in a pleasant voice. The baby just gurgles in response, leaving the woman to thank Cassian herself.

Cassian turns back to Jyn with an amused smile on his face that honestly overwhelms her. It’s rare to see him smile without a hint of self-deprecation or irony to it. If she put her mind to it, she could probably count the number of genuine smiles like that she’s seen on one hand. He’s almost always pulling them back, reining them in, for whatever reason.

“Anyway,” he says, turning his full attention back to her. “You were making fun of me for using a generic line on you.”

“I wasn’t,” Jyn says, and can’t help smiling herself. “I knew that’s not what you meant. You were really just asking if I come here often.”

“Yes, I was.”

“I do, to answer your question. It’s my favorite place for takeout, when I’m too lazy to cook, which is almost always.”

“You don’t eat in? With this ambience?” He asks, gesturing around the place.

“Hey, don’t judge their decor,” she fires back, more defensive than she would have expected herself to be. There are a million string lights everywhere, and the walls are painted a very aggressive shade of red, and the owners decorate to the nines for every single holiday, which means there’s hearts and lace and chubby Cupids wielding arrows everywhere for Valentine’s Day. “It’s fun.”

“Very,” Cassian agrees, with one of his small cryptic smiles. It makes Jyn remember with sudden clarity how fun it was to kiss him, to feel that smile against her lips.

She shakes herself out of it, focusing on the present. “I suppose your favorite restaurant is very chic and minimalist with its decor,” she says.

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he replies, giving the matter some consideration. “Honestly, I don’t go out for dinner a lot. I prefer to cook at home.”

“Well, I’ve been to your apartment,” she says, trying not to feel inadequate by comparison. “It’s pretty chic.”

It doesn’t occur to her what she’s said until after the words are out of her mouth. She obviously just meant that she’s been over to visit Bodhi before, but when Cassian gives her a surprised look in response, she realizes she has also unwittingly brought to mind the time they hooked up. It’s not an artful segue by any means, but she does need to get this over with and stop pretending they can just sit here and have a nice meal together, like normal people.

“Actually, that reminds me,” she begins, bracing herself for how much this is going to suck, “there’s something I wanted to tell you—”

Their neighbor at the next table chooses that perfect moment to toss their horrible mutated puppy toy at Jyn’s feet again and it breaks her concentration. Cassian, who’d been watching her and listening intently a second beforehand, spots the toy on the ground and leans to pick it up again before Jyn can even think to react. Instead of just turning around and handing it over again, he actually gets up and goes over to the baby this time, crouching in front of the high chair.

“You know, if you keep throwing this around, you might lose it,” he says, very solemnly, to the child. “Somebody might kick it into the kitchen. My friend over there might accidentally take it home with her.” The baby swivels around to look at Jyn and smiles at her with drooly gums that do nothing to make her want a child of her own. She smiles weakly in response.

“Anything could happen,” Cassian continues, drawing the baby’s attention back to him. “I don’t want you to lose it. Your mother doesn’t want you to lose it. You don’t want to lose it.” He’s saying all of this with that faux-serious tone people adopt with children, as if they’re grown-ups who understand what’s going on but also with a slight sing-song lilt to it. “So, no more throwing, okay?”

The baby shrieks and reaches for the toy, which Cassian pulls just slightly out of reach, delighting the child further. 

“Do we have an agreement?” He asks, holding out his hand, as if the child is a small businessman he’s making a deal with. The baby smacks a drool-soaked palm against Cassian’s in response, which makes him smile. “Very good.”

As he stands up, the child’s mother says something quietly to him, which Cassian waves off nonchalantly. He turns and drops back into his seat across from Jyn as if nothing has happened.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “You were saying…”

Jyn’s throat feels completely dry and speaking feels beyond her abilities at the moment, so she reaches for her drink before she replies. “You have a way with kids, huh?” She says, gesturing to their friends at the next table.

“Oh, that?” He asks, shrugging it off. “I guess so. I helped a lot with my sister when she was that age. My grandmother tells me I was so obsessed with babies that my parents had another kid just so I’d stop bugging them about it.”

“Huh,” Jyn says, trying to sound noncommittal while she’s panicking internally. God, of course he loves kids. Why would this be easy? 

Cassian, however, is oblivious to her distress, looking back over his shoulder at the family at the next table. “I’m really excited to have a bunch of little ones running around soon,” he says, out of nowhere, and Jyn’s stomach turns over.

She’s standing before she can even form a thought. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she knows she can’t stay here. The sudden movement draws Cassian’s attention back to her and he looks up at her in alarm.

“Jyn, are you okay?”

“I, uh,” she says, struggling for a lie that will get her out of there fast enough. “I think I left the oven on at my place, actually. So I have to go, right now.”

“Oh,” Cassian says, looking concerned and maybe even a little disappointed. “Well, I can go with you, or walk you out, if you—” He goes to put his coat on and Jyn throws her arm out to stop him, which just alarms him further.

“No need,” she says, half-frantic. She fishes her wallet out of her coat pocket and takes a few bills out, flinging them at the table in her urgency. “For my drink.”

“Oh, there’s no—”

“I’ll, uh—I’ll call you,” Jyn says, already rushing for the door. It doesn’t occur to her until she’s halfway to her apartment that she said the exact same thing the last time she ran out on him too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian finally learns the truth and some feelings are discussed. Emphasis on "some".

Jyn sprints the entire way home to her apartment, despite the fact that she hates running. If she’s focused on how miserable she is about that, she can’t think about what a fool she just made of herself at the restaurant and keeping her mind off of that is the most important thing at the moment. With all of the winter layers she has on, she ends up drenched in sweat by the time she gets home, so she immediately takes a long, hot shower. It’s just how she deals with stress these days, apparently. She’s in there so long that it’s a wonder her roommate doesn’t bang down the door and chew her out about the water bill being high enough as it is, but she’s probably due for a small mercy at this point.

After she’s done, she heads back to her room and finds the gigantic pile of clothes waiting for her on her bed, just where she left them, and that’s enough of a reality check that she finds herself crumpling onto the floor and crying her eyes out.  _ Stupid fucking hormones _ , she thinks, with her knees pulled into her chest. Stupid Reece for breaking up with her and cheating on her for months and for ruining everything. Stupid Cassian with his soft eyes and his small, understanding smiles and his punctuality and his resigned acceptance of the way she’s treated him. Stupid Jyn, with her irresponsibility and her fear of emotions and commitment and vulnerability and her dedication to always putting her faith in the wrong people and her insurmountable distrust of the right ones and her idiot uterus for picking this time with this guy to get pregnant. 

When there’s no tears left, just the shaky breaths of coming down from a tantrum, she slowly counts to ten and then pushes herself back up to her feet. She tells herself that she will come up with a new plan of how to tell Cassian what’s going on in the morning—it may be immature, but at this point, a text might be her best option—and for now, all she has to do is fold her clothes and then she can go to bed.

She’s managed to re-fold about half of the pile when her phone chimes with an alert for a text message. Seeing it’s from Bodhi, she swipes the screen to open it and sees that it just says:  _ I’m so so so so so so so so sorry, I’m so sorry _ . Before she can process that or ask him what he means, her phone rings and, this time, it’s Cassian.

Jyn freezes for a second before she numbly hits the button to answer the call. “Hello?”

“You’re  _ pregnant _ ?”

“I—” she starts to deny it, but realization dawns before she can come up with a proper lie. “Bodhi told you,” she says, closing her eyes and trying to remember how to breathe.

“Don’t be upset with him,” Cassian replies hurriedly. “He thought I knew.”

“I’m not,” Jyn says, and tries not to read anything into his tone. “Upset with him, that is.”

“Oh. Good.”

Silence stretches between them and Jyn can’t really blame him for not knowing what to say next. She doesn’t even know what to say next, and she’s the one holding all the cards in this situation. 

“Cassian?” 

“I’m still here.”

“Do you want to come over?” She asks, picking at a loose thread on her comforter anxiously. It shouldn’t feel like such a big ask, but at the moment it does. “To talk, I mean.”

He exhales loudly, as if he’d been holding his breath waiting for her question. “At your place?”

“Yeah.”

“Right now?”

“If you want,” Jyn says with a shrug that he can’t see. This conversation is making her feel all of fifteen years old. She half-expects him to ask if her parents are home next.

“Okay, sure,” he replies, sounding cautious. “I could do that.”

Some part of Jyn relaxes at that, even if he doesn’t sound enthusiastic about it. Because, surely, if he hated her now, he wouldn’t come over to see her. He doesn’t even seem angry about any of this, just confused, which makes sense under the circumstances. It doesn’t have to be catastrophic; they can handle it like adults, maybe.

It takes a few more minutes of awkward discussion, but Jyn says she’ll send Cassian her address and he says he can be there in about twenty minutes and then they hang up, leaving Jyn to panic in her apartment alone. She does her best to clean up the rest of her clothes and put them back where they belong, but a significant portion of them just get dropped onto her desk chair to be dealt with later. She tries to get the living room to look like an real adult lives there, moving all the assorted cups and plates she’s left lying around into the kitchen sink and tidying up the art supplies that are strewn across every surface. She doesn’t bother changing into a cuter outfit again; Cassian knows what he’s getting into now, she reasons, and so she sticks with the leggings-and-a-sweater ensemble that is now, apparently, her traditional outfit for telling someone she is pregnant. 

The time between getting off the phone with Cassian and the buzzer signaling his arrival doesn’t exactly fly by, but the panic-induced cleaning spree does take up Jyn’s attention for a while. She’s already warned him that it was a trek from the lobby to her apartment and that there’s no elevator, so she just buzzes him in and waits by the door until she hears footsteps close by. She undoes the chain and turns over the deadbolt, swinging the door open about two seconds before Cassian appears in front of it.

“Hey,” he says, slightly out of breath, and, for all Jyn saw him just an hour ago, her heart still stutters at the sight of him. 

“Hi,” she says, still at a loss for how to have this conversation, despite the ample time she’s had to worry about it. They obviously can’t have it in the doorway, though, so she steps aside while gesturing into the apartment. “Come inside,” she adds, awkwardly.

Cassian steps past her and his face takes on the expression of someone trying not to seem nosy while his eyes nonetheless take in the entire room. It makes sense that he’d be interested—they hooked up at his place, so he’s never actually been here before, and she’d been the same way with his bedroom, scanning everything and hoping to learn more about him from it—but Jyn can’t help but worry that he’ll find something she doesn’t want him to know about her. Then again, that’s always how she feels with him, like her carefully designed defenses are useless against his perceptiveness. Like she’s giving herself away with everything she does.

“I can take your coat, if you want,” she says, just for something to do. If it distracts him from whatever he’s learning about her from her messy apartment, that’s good too. She holds out a hand for it, feeling ridiculous but not willing to bail on the impulse now.

“Oh,” Cassian says, as if his mind had been elsewhere. He moves to unzip his jacket, but a brown paper bag he’s carrying that Jyn hadn’t noticed when he first came in impedes him. “Can you actually—?” He asks, gesturing at her with the bag.

Jyn reaches for it immediately, relieved to have something to do with her hands. “Yes, sure,” she says, solemnly, as if taking this bag from him is the most important task in the history of the universe. He’s halfway out of his jacket when she thinks to ask, “what is this, anyway?”

“Oh,” he says again, pulling his arm out of a sleeve. “It’s dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah,” he says, as if this requires no further explanation. When Jyn just blinks at him in response, though, he seems to realize he needs to elaborate. “You didn’t get to eat earlier.”

“Right, so this is—?”

“Dinner,” Cassian replies, slowly, as if it’s not a word she’s heard before, which it may as well not be, given how much difficulty she’s having understanding him. “You told me what you were going to order earlier, so I thought—”

“Sorry, you went back to the restaurant?” Jyn asks, disbelieving. “To get me dinner?”

“Yes,” he says, carefully, like he thinks he might be in trouble.

“You went back to pick up dinner after I humiliated myself and left you there for no reason and lied to you?” She asks, and she can tell from the waver in her voice that she's about to embarrass herself again.

“You didn’t do any of that, Jyn,” he says, patiently, and that’s all it takes to make her cry again, apparently, which rightfully freaks him out. “If I did something wrong—” he starts to say, reaching out for her.

“No, no. Not at all,” Jyn says, wiping at her eyes in what turns out to be a futile gesture; trying to hide her tears just makes her more embarrassed and that makes her cry even more. “You’re being way too nice to me. I don’t deserve this.”

Cassian shrugs. “Everyone deserves dinner,” he says, like it’s really as simple as that. “I really didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“You didn’t. I mean, I’m fine,” she replies, not sounding convincing at all judging by Cassian’s reaction. She sniffles and tries again. “Really, I am. It’s just these damn hormones.”

“Right,” he says, gesturing vaguely as if the hormones are in the air somehow. He takes a deep, steadying breath before he speaks again. “So, you’re pregnant…”

Jyn tilts her head in the direction of the living room. “Come on, let’s sit down to talk about this.”

Cassian lets her lead the way and cautiously takes a seat in the armchair once he sees Jyn settle on the couch. She can’t tell if this distance is for his sake or for hers, but it doesn’t feel like a good sign either way. It also brings to mind the conversation she had with Bodhi, with them in the exact same positions. She can only hope this one will go even half as well.

After a few moments of silence, Cassian clears his throat awkwardly. “So…?” 

Jyn laughs before she can stop herself, not because she’s genuinely amused but just because she cannot believe this is a real thing that’s happening to her. “Right,” she says. “I guess I have to do the talking here.”

Cassian nods, but speaks anyway. “All Bodhi told me was that you were pregnant,” he says. “He thought you’d already told me when he heard we’d gone to dinner—”

“I  _ was _ planning to tell you then, but I…”

“You what?”

Jyn takes a deep breath and stares at her hands where they’re gripping her knees. “I chickened out,” she says, to her hands.

“Why?”

“I just—you were talking to that kid at the next table and you said you couldn’t wait to have little ones running around and I didn’t want to tell you I was pregnant and deal with the disappointment when I told you I wasn’t going to keep it.”

Cassian closes his eyes, looking pained, and Jyn readies herself for the oncoming argument. Instead of yelling at her, though, Cassian just groans and rubs his forehead.

“Oh, god,” he says, “if I’d known you were—”

“You couldn’t have!” She hurries to say. “How could you have known?”

“I know, but still.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting kids! I just...don’t.”

“Neither do I,” Cassian says, in a rush, and Jyn feels like she forgets how to breathe for a second.

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to say that to make me feel better,” she says, feeling oddly hurt by the very idea of it. Reece had been pretty ambivalent about the whole issue, but she’s had other exes who insisted she would change her mind and it made her wary of bringing the subject of kids up with anyone. She might very well change her mind  _ someday _ , but she feels comfortable saying she doesn’t want children  _ now _ . That way, no one she dates gets disappointed later on when she doesn’t change her mind.

“I’m not,” Cassian says, in the here and now. “I mean it.”

“Cassian, you work with children in the foster care system. You love kids! And you told me an hour ago that you can’t wait to have a bunch of them!”

“My sister is pregnant,” he says, cutting in before she can keep going. “That’s what I was talking about. She told the whole family when we were all home for Christmas. And you’re right: I do love kids. But I think being an uncle will be enough for me.”

Jyn’s entire mouth has gone dry, so forming words is a little difficult at the moment. She’d been so sure that he would want kids of his own, even if he didn’t want this one with her right now. Without even realizing it, she’d put it on the list of reasons why she absolutely couldn’t date Cassian Andor; because he’s the sort of guy who will want a family someday and she’s not the sort of girl who could give that to him. Well, on a purely biological level, apparently she’s extremely capable of it, but on an emotional level, not so much. The point is, hearing him say that he doesn’t want kids feels like it shatters her entire worldview.

Cassian, however, doesn’t seem to realize her silence is the result of any emotional upheaval and takes it instead as an invitation to keep talking. “And even if I did want kids, I’m definitely not ready to have them now,” he says, leaning in closer to her as if to emphasize his sincerity. “And even if I was ready, it’s not my decision.”

“Really?” Jyn asks, finding enough confidence to be incredulous.

“Really,” he says, earnestly and, if she’s not mistaken, a little defensively. “I couldn’t ask someone to carry a child they didn’t want for nine months just because I wanted it.”

She likes that he keeps it theoretical like that, as if they’re talking about a fictional pregnancy and not a real one. He doesn’t even mention her specifically. He’s talking about some other future woman, one who wouldn’t abandon him at a restaurant because she couldn’t have an adult conversation. It’s another reason—one he’s too polite to mention—that this pregnancy can’t go forward: they’re not together and they never could be. She’s just not relationship material.

“But, to be clear,” she says, “you don’t want it?”

“No,” he says, immediately and firmly, which reassures her but makes him wince. “I mean, you don’t either, right?”

“What? No!”

“I just wanted to be sure,” he says, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. “Because I don’t want you to feel like you have to—”

“I’m not having a baby,” Jyn says, just as firmly. “I don’t want one and I’d be a terrible mother, so...it’s just not happening.”

“I don’t think you’d be—” Cassian starts to say but she cuts him off with a look. He puts up his hands, as though he’s surrendering. “Right. You don’t need my reassurance on this, I get it.”

Jyn narrows her eyes at him, even as she leans back against the couch cushions. “You’re being remarkably understanding about all of this,” she says, warily.

“Sorry, did you want me to be an asshole about it?” He snaps, and then clearly regrets it. “I’m sorry, I just—”

“You’re fine, Cassian. I’m relieved, honestly, to see you have a real emotion about something.”

He laughs at that, but there’s no joy to it and Jyn realizes belatedly that she’s actually hurt his feelings. 

“Yes, I know it’s a rare thing with me,” he says, looking down at his shoes.

“I’m sorry,” she says, leaning forward but stopping short of reaching for him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know what you meant.”

“No, you don’t.” She takes a deep breath, before she goes on. “I just prepared so much for the worst case scenario, where you got angry with me and called me selfish for not wanting this baby and, well, all sorts of other terrible things, that I guess I don’t know what to do now that you’re here and you’re being really...lovely about it.”

Cassian laughs again, though there’s some actual good humor to it this time. “Lovely, huh?”

“Yes,” Jyn replies, refusing to be embarrassed of her word choice. “You brought me dinner and you’re being so understanding and patient about all of this. You’re not even mad that I thought you were going to be awful about it.”

“Believe me, I’m familiar with catastrophizing,” he says, sardonically. “I love a good worst case scenario.”

Jyn smiles at that. “I just want to make sure you’re being honest with me about how you feel,” she says, ignoring the irony of those words coming from her, the queen of denial.

Cassian, for his part, looks completely thrown by this. “How I feel?” He asks, baffled. “Jyn, you’re the one who’s pregnant. How I feel is irrelevant.”

“That’s not true. You can still have feelings about it! And while it’s not precisely a secret, and I know it’s not like you and I are super close, it’s still mostly a thing just between us and I guess I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

He nods, absently, but seems to be giving the question real thought. “I think I am,” he finally says, and somehow his uncertainty goes a long way in making Jyn trust what he’s saying. “I grew up in the sort of family where we didn’t talk about these kinds of things, you know? That is, until you got your first girlfriend and then everyone was saying you’d better not try anything because if she gets pregnant, you’re gonna have to marry her, you know? And you know the state of sex education in this country, it’s honestly so—”

Cassian stops himself when he catches Jyn’s eye and realizes she’s trying not to smile. “Sorry,” he says, looking embarrassed and, unfortunately, very cute because of it. “That’s a rant for another day. The point is, I grew up thinking abortion was bad, because sex outside of marriage was bad and if you’re married and having sex, you should want kids too. But then I went away to college and now I have a degree in social work and somewhere along the line, I realized abortion was just...a thing people do. And I think everyone should have access to it if they want or need it.

“And I don’t know how to convince you I’m not just saying all of this for a gold star or something, but I promise it’s how I really feel and I don’t...judge you at all, for doing it.” He pauses, clearly debating whether to say anything else. “I mean, I’m definitely not going to tell my grandmother about this because she’d kick my ass, but she also still thinks I go to church every Sunday, so what’s another lie between family?”

“I mean, are you sure you don’t want to brag about knocking me up and then encouraging me to get an abortion to your grandmother?” Jyn asks, honestly unable to process any of the other things he said. “Because that sounds like a really fun conversation to me.”

Cassian laughs at that, and this time it’s genuine, which she can tell from the way he ducks his head to hide his smile. “If you want her to know so bad, I’ll give you her number. You can tell her yourself.”

“I think I’m good.”

“Are you?” He asks, softly, after a moment’s consideration. He’s looking at his hands when he says it, like he’s afraid of how she’ll react to his concern. “I mean, are you okay?”

Jyn laughs, disbelieving, before she realizes that could seem rude. “I mean, I’ve been better,” she says, truthfully. “But I’ve also been worse. So I guess I am okay. I’m exactly okay.”

She means it to be pacifying, to ease Cassian’s mind, but she sees that she’s missed the mark when the concerned expression on his face seems to deepen. She thinks about backpedaling somehow, saying something fake and cheerful about the situation, but she can’t think of anything and she’s also pretty sure Cassian would see right through that anyway. She’s never been able to hide from him, which is probably why this thing has been such a mess from the start.

“I mean, I’m not exactly happy to have this procedure done, or to have to pay for it, but—”

“I could help,” Cassian interjects and Jyn completely loses her train of thought.

“Help?” She asks, blankly. “With what?”

“With...paying for it,” he says, awkwardly.

“Oh,” Jyn says, feeling an odd mixture of emotions. She’s not even sure what kind of help she was expecting him to offer, but paying for her abortion wasn’t it. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I could, though. I will, if you want.”

She takes a deep breath, trying to understand what she’s actually feeling before she says anything. “I don’t.”

“You don’t…?”

“I don’t want your help,” she says, trying not to sound too harsh while also sounding decisive.

“Oh,” Cassian replies, painfully neutral. “I understand.”

Jyn wants to contradict him, comfort him somehow by telling him he’s wrong and that he doesn’t understand. She wants to explain that she’s not rejecting his help because she doesn’t want or need it, but because she doesn’t feel she deserves it, after everything. She can’t walk around for the rest of her life, seeing him at shows and at Bodhi’s place, knowing that she fucked him over and ghosted him and then he came through when she needed him. She wouldn’t be able to deal with the guilt. She already can’t.

“It was my fault,” she says, instead, which just makes him look at her in confusion. “I told you I was on birth control—and I thought I was, really—but I forgot to refill my prescription after my breakup because I wasn’t having sex with anyone and so I let it lapse because, whatever, who cares, right? And then I forgot that I had stopped taking it and so when we, you know, had sex, I thought I was on the pill—I have been for like 10 years, so I just got so used to saying it that I forgot I wasn’t anymore—and that’s why I said we didn’t have to use anything. And then like three weeks ago, I found my old birth control...case...thing and it was empty and I remembered that I stopped taking it and then I realized I hadn’t had my period in a while and my boobs have been really tender and I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive so then I went to Planned Parenthood and they said I was pregnant and then I scheduled my abortion for next Friday.

“And now here we are,” she says, finally taking a breath. “So, I’m sorry but I can’t take your money after I’ve been so careless about...everything. I’m also sorry I talked about my boobs being tender before. That was weird.”

Cassian just looks at her, dumbfounded, for a moment after she’s finished speaking. “You don’t need to apologize,” he eventually says, once he’s gathered his thoughts. “For any of it.”

“Cassian—”

“No, really,” he says, firmly. “I’m not going to push you on this, I promise. If you don’t want my help, that’s your prerogative. But just don’t apologize to me, when there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I screwed everything up,” Jyn insists, feeling close to tears once again. “Why aren’t you upset with me?”

“Because you’re doing everything you can to make sure none of this affects me! You don’t want money from me, you’re not even blaming me for getting you pregnant in the first place.”

“Because it was my fault!”

“These things happen, Jyn,” Cassian says, gently. “Even if you’d been on the pill, even if we used a condom, this could have happened.”

“Someone thinks very highly of his own virility,” she says before she can stop herself, but luckily it makes him laugh. “Sorry,” she adds, anyway.

“Stop apologizing,” he says, though the severity of it is undercut by the fact that he’s still smiling at her. They sit there in the surprisingly pleasant, companionable silence for a few moments until Cassian’s face suddenly clouds with worry again. “Wait, did you say your appointment is next Friday?” He asks.

“Yes. Why?”

“But that’s the 14th,” he says. When that only earns him a blank stare in response, he adds, “Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh, I guess it is,” Jyn says, with a shrug. “Why does that matter?”

Cassian shrugs too, but it feels like he’s faking it. “It’s just not a very fun way to spend Valentine’s Day.”

Jyn waves a hand at this concern. “Oh, I don’t care about that. Although, I hope it doesn’t interrupt Bodhi’s plans. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Bodhi?”

“Yeah, he’s coming to my appointment with me.”

“Oh?”

“They said I had to bring someone,” Jyn says, with a hint of an eyeroll. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered Bodhi about it.”

Cassian nods aggressively at that, but his eyes are on the coffee table instead of her and his gaze seems far off. “That’s good, though,” he says, sounding as if he’s trying to convince himself. “Bodhi will be a good person to have around for that. He’s...comforting. You’ll be comfortable with him.”

“Right,” she agrees, distracted by his odd behavior. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he says, snapping out of it immediately. “Of course. It’s just getting late, that’s all.”

“Oh, right. Well, if you have to go…”

“I probably should,” Cassian says, apologetically. Like he should really give up more of his free time for her. “I have work in the morning and...well, you know…”

“Yeah, I do,” Jyn says, standing up at the same time as he does.

At a loss for what to say or do, she goes to grab his jacket off the hook by the door. She turns to bring it back to him, only to find him right behind her. She makes an embarrassing noise of surprise at him being so close and hands it over without a word.

“Thanks,” he says, with a wry smile that somehow doesn’t feel like it’s at her expense.

“Thank you,” she replies, gesturing back towards the couch, “for bringing me dinner and for coming back after I acted so insane at the restaurant and for being so understanding about everything.”

Cassian is busy trying to get the collar of his jacket to sit right, so she hopes he doesn’t see that her eyes are stupidly filling with tears again. He looks back at her half a second after she gets herself under control, which is lucky, but the expression on his face—careful, guarded hope mixed with genuine interest and concern—nearly undoes her hard work in an instant. He’s not allowed to look at her like that.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, softly, like he’s afraid to startle her. “You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”

“Oh, well, that’s not—”

He cuts off her equivocating with a sharp look and she takes the hint. He winds his scarf around his neck before he says, “I know you’re fine and you don’t need my help, but, on the off chance you do need anything, you know how to reach me.”

“Bat signal in the night sky over Gotham, right?” She jokes, which makes him smile, however briefly.

“I’m serious,” he says, and he puts a hand on her shoulder to prove it. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” she says, even though she won’t. “I promise,” she lies.

“Okay,” Cassian says, probably knowing she’s lying, but he gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze in spite of it. “Take care of yourself.”

Jyn nods, trying to think of something more inspired to say than  _ you too _ and then he’s pulling his hand away and something inside her panics. Suddenly, she’s wrapping her arms around his middle and pulling him closer and they’re hugging, which is not a thing they really do, except maybe as a brief greeting or as part of a goodbye. After three seconds, this one hug has surpassed any of their other ones in duration, but letting go of him somehow seems more awkward. Then, his arms wrap around her too, with the palm of one hand coming to rest on her back and the other curling around the base of her neck, fingertips sinking into her hair.

She sighs involuntarily into the fabric of his scarf and hopes that it’s somehow muffled enough that he didn’t hear her. In response or completely independently, she’s not sure which, Cassian tucks his face into her shoulder. If it weren’t for the layers of clothing between them, it could have been a kiss, but she really shouldn’t be thinking things like that. She shouldn’t have done this in the first place at all, but now she can see that she wanted this all along. She wanted someone to hold her, apparently, to give her something solid to cling to when everything else in her life feels so nebulous and volatile. And Cassian gives her that, holding her close without a word, moving his palm slowly and gently over her back in a soothing, repetitive circle.

It would be easy, she thinks, to turn what they’re doing right now into a kiss, to leverage this one kind of intimacy into another. She could ask him to stay, to spend the night, and he might not even need much convincing. She hasn’t been sleeping well—up all night worrying about money and about telling Cassian what was going on—and she thinks he could probably help with that, even if he does nothing more than hold her like he is right now. It would be easy, and she wants to so badly.

But then she thinks of the two months she waited to call him. She thinks of leaving him in that restaurant and how he brought her dinner anyway. She thinks of her messy bedroom with the piles of clothes everywhere and her bright, mismatched sheets and her desk covered in markers and paint and unfinished sketches and she can’t imagine bringing him in there, not after she’s seen his meticulously clean and terrifyingly organized bedroom. She thinks of his sweaters over button-ups and his respectable career and his well-ordered life and how she continually barrels into it and fucks everything up. She thinks of asking him to stay and she knows he’d say yes, but it would be out of pity for her, out of concern, out of obligation to the almost mother of his theoretical child. It would be a selfish thing to ask of him, and she’s been selfish enough.

Instead, she allows herself another moment to enjoy the feeling of being held before she slowly pulls back, disentangling herself from his arms. He follows her lead immediately, letting his arms drop to his sides before hurriedly burying his hands in his pockets. Jyn does her best to wipe her eyes inconspicuously, though it’s likely a lost cause at this point. Cassian’s not stupid; he knows that wasn’t a regular goodbye hug. 

“Thanks again,” Jyn says, finally and anticlimactically, after a moment’s silence. If Cassian somehow couldn’t see that she’s been crying, he can definitely hear it in her voice now. 

“Of course,” he says, blessedly not mentioning it. He does, however, reach out a hand to brush a wayward strand of hair back from her face, his thumb skimming over her cheekbone as he does it. 

Jyn hurries to step away after that, refusing to let herself linger in his presence and want things she can’t have. She undoes the locks on the front door and holds it open for him, standing aside to leave plenty of room between them. 

He’s just stepping through the doorway when he turns back towards her. “If you need anything…” he repeats, seeming uncertain.

“I’ll call,” Jyn finishes for him, smiling weakly.

“Right,” Cassian says with a nod, before turning away. He’s already in the hallway when he turns back again. “Jyn?”

“Yeah?” She’s lingering by the doorway, when she should have already closed the door and put an end to this exhausting evening.

“You can call even if you don’t need anything,” he says, that same serious, hopeful expression from before returning. “You can always call.”

With that, he turns and walks away. Jyn stands in her doorway, watching him go and then listening until his footsteps reach and then disappear through the front door and for a few minutes after that, too, because she can’t bring herself to move.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn gets some much needed tough love from the band. She also gets soup.

“So,” Chirrut says, clapping his hands together and officially bringing their meeting to order, “how has everyone’s week been so far?”

As Jyn expected, Baze and Bodhi immediately turn their attention to her, since they clearly all discussed this beforehand and planned to gang up on her.

“I hate all of you,” she says, picking up Baze and Chirrut’s cat from the floor where she’s been weaving between everyone’s ankles and dropping her onto her lap. The cat immediately curls up over Jyn’s stomach, despite the fact that she’s not visibly pregnant at all, and Baze hums thoughtfully, which makes Jyn scowl. “Shut up,” she adds, without much heat.

“I didn’t say anything,” Baze says with an exaggerated shrug.

“I can hear what you’re thinking.”

“You’re starting to sound like him,” he replies, cocking his head towards Chirrut, who smiles broadly in response.

“We’re anxious to know how you’re doing,” Chirrut says.

“Oh, I’m sure Bodhi’s already told you everything,” Jyn says, shooting a glare in Bodhi’s direction.

“I’ve told them everything I know,” he replies easily. “Which is not the same as, well,  _ everything _ .”

“I told you how my conversation with Cassian went, which is what I assume you all care about, so you should be caught up.”

“Okay, first of all, that was like...four days ago,” Bodhi says, counting off on his fingers. “And secondly, I asked how your conversation with Cassian went and you said ‘fine’ and then ignored my texts for two days!”

“Well, I—”

“And  _ thirdly _ , that is not ‘all we care about’! We love you, we want to know how you’re doing!”

Jyn flings her head back on the couch petulantly, only giving up on her sulk when she feels Baze’s hand on her shoulder. He gives it a gentle squeeze, but when she turns towards him, he’s giving her a stern look.

“He’s right, you know,” he says, solemnly.

“Ugh, fine,” she says, sitting up and mildly annoying the cat that’s still curled in her lap. She scratches her behind the ears to make up for it. “What do you want to know?”

“How are you feeling?” Chirrut asks.

“Fine,” Jyn answers with a shrug, and then sees Bodhi’s unimpressed look and decides to elaborate. “I’ve been a little moody, I guess.”

“No, he means since you’ve been pregnant,” Bodhi says, laughing, and Jyn swats him.

“Asshole,” she replies, but there’s no heat to it. “I’ve been  _ moodier _ . How’s that?”

“Much better, thank you.”

Jyn hums, considering what else to add. “I haven’t had much of an appetite. Also, I've been sleeping like crap, but that’s probably stress over the appointment.”

“That’s Friday, right?” Baze asks, before taking a sip of his tea.

She nods. “Bodhi’s going with me, so no one has to worry.”

“We’ll worry anyway, just to be safe,” Chirrut says cheerfully, which makes Baze hide his smile in his mug. “How did Cassian take the news?”

“Why don’t you ask Bodhi?” Jyn says with an eye roll. “He’s the one who told him.”

Bodhi scowls at that. “In my defense, he came back to our apartment from dinner with you looking thoughtful, and I knew you’d been trying to tell him, so I just assumed he already knew! How was I supposed to know you chickened out and abandoned him at the restaurant?”

Jyn thinks about swatting at him again, but she’s fairly certain that Baze and Chirrut’s cat would not take it too kindly if she jostles her one more time.

“You left him at the restaurant?” Baze asks, alarmed.

“No, I—okay, so, technically, I did, but it was…it's complicated!” When that doesn’t seem to pacify anyone, she adds, “he was being cute to a baby at the next table and I freaked out and left, okay? Bodhi still shouldn’t have told him.”

“I thought he knew already,” Bodhi cries. “You didn’t see his face! He looked very confused! I was trying to offer my support!”

“That’s just Cassian’s face!”

“Maybe around you, it is.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Bodhi looks heavenward for a moment, as if praying for the patience to deal with her. “I just mean that...I think maybe Cassian doesn’t know how to read you. Not the way we do.”

Jyn looks around at the others, whose facial expressions give away nothing, except that they’re listening intently. “Well,” she says, “that makes sense, I guess. He doesn’t know me as well as you do.” 

“No,” Baze says, carefully. “But I think he’d like to.”

She can’t do anything in response to that except blink at him in confusion. “What?” She finally asks, after what feels like several minutes.

“I think he likes you, Jyn,” Bodhi says, far too gently. “I think he was really happy you asked him to dinner the other night and he was disappointed when you left without explaining.”

“He knows now,” she interjects. “I explained what happened when he came over later.”

“I know, I just think...he wanted you to call him for another reason.”

“Yeah, well, so did I,” Jyn says, petulantly. “It’s not like I wanted to be pregnant.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Bodhi says, and his tone is lightly chiding, which just makes her pout more. “I meant that I was a little surprised he came home from your place at all that night.”

“What, did you think I was gonna axe murder him?”

He frowns at her. “No, dummy, I thought he was going to tell you how he felt!”

“‘How he felt’??” Jyn repeats. “What does that mean?”

“I give up,” Bodhi says, throwing his hands up.

“I just don’t understand!”

“Listen,” Chirrut says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “We know it’s been a rough few months for you. The breakup was terrible and with Saw’s health getting worse and now being pregnant, this can’t be an easy situation for you to deal with. But surely, even with all of that going on, you must see that Cassian has feelings for you.”

Jyn laughs before she can’t stop herself, but no one else joins her. They don’t even crack a smile, they just keep looking at her with concern. “That’s not true,” she says, with more confidence than she feels. “Don’t joke about that.”

“He’s not joking,” Baze says. “It’s true.”

“Cassian told you that?”

“He didn’t have to. It’s obvious from the way he looks at you.”

“And from the way he talks about you,” Bodhi adds. “He’s seriously asked about you a hundred times this week alone.”

“Well, that’s because he’s worried,” Jyn says. “Because I’m pregnant and he feels bad. Not because he likes me. And if he looks at me in any sort of special way, it’s because he feels bad for me. Because of the breakup and everything.”

“Oh, I get it,” Bodhi says, nodding in a way that feels sarcastic somehow. “He only had sex with you out of pity.”

“Yeah,” she replies, half heartedly. “That’s gotta be it.”

“Bullshit,” he fires back. “He’s had a thing for you since he met you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jyn practically shouts. “I—I had a boyfriend when he met me.”

That remark earns her an eye roll. “Yeah, and no one’s ever had a thing for someone they couldn’t have before.”

“So, what? You think he was just waiting around for me and Reece to break up so he could have a shot with me?”

“Of course not! But I don’t think he was miserable to hear that it had finally happened.”

“If he was so excited for me to be single, why did I have to make the first move? Why didn’t he call me afterwards? Why didn’t he say anything about wanting to date me at any point in the last few months?”

The guys are quiet once she’s finished, but not in a way that makes her feel like she’s stumped them. Rather, it feels like they can’t decide who’s going to tell her she’s wrong first.

“Like we said,” Chirrut finally pipes up, “he doesn’t know you as well as we do. Maybe he doubts your feelings for him.”

“My feelings?” Jyn asks, flabbergasted. “For him? I don’t...I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Jyn,” Bodhi says, rolling his eyes. “You wouldn’t have slept with him in the first place if you didn’t have feelings for him.”

“I know this is hard for you to believe, since you’re some sort of Disney prince when it comes to relationships, but sometimes people just have sex because they’re horny and they feel like it,” she snaps.

He has the audacity to shrug in response. “Sure, but that’s not why you did it.”

“Oh, right! Because you know how I feel better than I do! How could I have forgotten?”

“Normally, I would never presume to tell someone else how they feel,” Bodhi says, putting his hand to his heart and everything, “but, in this one particular case, and just because you’re so terrible with emotions, I’m telling you: you like him too. Trust me.”

“I am not  _ terrible _ with emotions,” she scoffs. 

“Well…you’re not great with them either,” Chirrut says, with a shrug.

“Okay, fine! Let’s say you’re all right; I do have feelings for Cassian. What good does it do me? I already slept with him, made him feel like a rebound, didn’t call him for two months afterwards, and then bulldozed my way back into his life by telling him I’m pregnant. What sort of guy would still be interested in me after all that?”

“Cassian would,” Bodhi says simply, as if she’s the dumbest human being in the universe. “As long as it’s you, he’ll still be interested.”

Jyn closes her eyes, because now would be a stupid time to cry, especially since she’s trying to convince them she doesn’t care about Cassian and crying over someone is a textbook example of caring about them. She can’t even think about what they’re saying, because she isn’t allowed to think about Cassian like that. She’s attracted to him, sure, but sleeping with him was supposed to get it out of her system. And it should have. The only reason sleeping with him  _ wouldn’t _ have helped is if they’re right and she does actually have feelings for him. And that would really suck, because there’s absolutely no way he feels the same way about her; not after everything she’s put him through.

“If I agree to take everything you’ve said tonight under advisement,” Jyn says carefully, without opening her eyes, “can we please talk about something else right now?”

Baze puts his hand on her shoulder again, which makes her look over at him. “Of course,” he says, and she smiles at him weakly in response.

An hour or so later, she and Bodhi shuffle out of Baze and Chirrut’s apartment to head home for the night, without so much as a moment’s rehearsal on anyone’s part, despite that being the actual reason they supposedly got together tonight. Once they’re out in the night air, Bodhi claps his mittened hands together to ward off the cold and they head for the subway together.

“I can’t believe those bozos made me soup,” Jyn says, perching her chin on the top of the tupperware that Baze had shoved into her hands before she left, on the grounds that she wouldn’t want to make dinner for herself on Friday after her appointment and so he and Chirrut had made something for her to take home so she wouldn’t starve. It had been another close call for her almost crying.

“Well, they love you,” Bodhi says, slightly muffled because he’s buried his chin in his scarf. “And so do I. We just want you to be happy.”

“I know that.”

“I’m sorry if I was a little hard on you earlier.”

Jyn wants to wave his apology away, but she’s a little worried about dropping the container she’s holding, so she just shakes her head instead. “You weren’t.”

Bodhi looks down at his feet as he walks. “I was, a little. I just get so frustrated when you talk like you don’t deserve nice things.”

“I never said that.”

“Not directly, but,” he pauses, clearly searching for the right words, “I watched the way things ended with you and Reece, and you were mad at him, sure, but a lot of the time, the way you talked, it was like you were mad at yourself. Like, you thought you deserved what he did to you, and if you’d been a better girlfriend or a better person, you could have stopped it from happening. And that’s bullshit.”

Jyn stops short, right there on the sidewalk. “I don’t think that,” she says, but it’s a faint protest. She knows she’s had that thought before, more than once, and she’s sure she got drunk enough at some point to even say it to Bodhi.

Luckily for her, he doesn’t cite his sources with a drunken text from her or anything like that. He just looks at her, with obvious concern, and says, “You deserve someone who’s going to treat you right. Someone who’s never going to make you doubt how they feel.”

“And you think Cassian is that person for me?” she asks, trying to sound incredulous.

“I don’t know,” Bodhi says, shrugging helplessly. “But you don’t know either, and you won’t ever know unless you give him a chance.”

Jyn starts walking again while she processes that and he follows her lead. When he’s caught up with her, she moves in close to elbow him in the ribs. 

“Being in love with Taidu has really made you into a hopeless romantic,” she teases.

“I’ve always been a hopeless romantic,” he grumbles, making her laugh. “But now I speak from experience.”

She smiles at that, holding her tupperware of soup close to her chest. “What you said before,” she says, quietly, “were you serious? Cassian really asks about me?”

“All the time,” Bodhi says, smiling. “He knows I was meeting you tonight, so I bet he’ll ask about you within the first five minutes I’m home.”

Jyn rolls her eyes at that, but the idea of it thrills her, making her cheeks warm even in the cold night air. “I’m sure he won’t,” she says, faintly, because there’s a foolish part of her that really wants Bodhi to be right.

“I’m serious,” he replies. “I’d put money on it.”

“Well, so would I.”

Bodhi sticks out a hand for her to shake, which she readily accepts, once she’s switched her soup to the other hand. “It’s a deal, then?” He asks.

She laughs. “Deal.”

  
It’s only later, once they’ve parted ways at the subway station and she’s made her way back to her apartment, that her phone buzzes with a new text:  _ You owe me five bucks _ . Jyn allows herself a stupid, giddy smile at Bodhi’s message, since she’s alone in her own home and no one can judge her for it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's Day arrives, and so does Jyn's appointment.

On the day of her appointment, Jyn wakes up to the third alarm she set for herself, which has got to be some sort of record, since she sets around twelve on a normal day and she set about twenty for today so she could be sure she wouldn’t miss her appointment. It gives her way more time than she actually needs to get ready, and she’s too nervous to eat anything, so she can’t even kill the extra time by making herself breakfast. She takes a long shower, because her roommate is away for the weekend and can’t give her a hard time about it, and puts on an outfit that’s comfortable enough to come home in after the procedure, and contemplates actually styling her hair, just for the hell of it, but then discards the idea as silly.

The buzzer for the door goes off while she is trying to think of a better way to waste time and distract herself, and she’s impressed with how early Bodhi is. She presses the button to let him in, just as her phone starts ringing. Bodhi’s name and photo (a selfie he took with a flower crown filter when she wasn’t guarding her phone carefully enough after one of their gigs) pop up on the display. She swipes at the screen to answer it, feeling confused.

“Hey, I just let you in,” she says, warily. “That was you, right?”

“Not exactly,” Bodhi says. “Listen, you’re going to hate me for this, but—”

She panics immediately at his tone and interrupts. “Bodhi, please, you have to come with me, okay? You promised and I—I need you!”

“Jyn, I would never abandon you. I just did something slightly annoying because I thought it might help.”

“What did you do?”

“I sent an emissary in my place,” he replies, managing to sound guilty and proud of himself at the same time. “He really wouldn’t stop asking about you, and he seemed so worried, that I thought it would be—”

“Please tell me you didn’t send Cassian to accompany me to my abortion,” she says, pressing her forehead against the wall. This cannot be happening.

“Listen, I will understand if you never forgive me, but you’re both being complete idiots about this whole thing. Just tell him you like him, and let him take care of you like he so desperately wants to.”

“Bodhi, this is not some sort of romantic comedy, okay? I’m going to get an abortion. This is not any person’s idea of a dream date!”

“Of course it’s not. I know that,” Bodhi says. “But it’s not a dealbreaker for him either.”

Jyn rolls her eyes, even though he can’t see it. “And how would you even know that?”

“Because I asked him.”

“You…?” She looks at her phone in horror, as if that will change what she’s just heard. “You asked him if it was a dealbreaker?”

“No, I asked if he was still interested in you,” he replies, casually. Like this is no big deal.

“And what did he say?”

“Jyn, he’s at your doorstep,” Bodhi says, patiently. “If that’s not answer enough, ask him yourself.”

She closes her eyes, hoping that will somehow put an end to the whirlwind of emotions she’s feeling. She’s obviously annoyed with Bodhi for putting her in this position when she’s already stressed, but she also can’t deny that she does want to know Cassian’s answer to that question. Mostly, though, she just wishes none of this was happening, that she could just go back in time and make better choices two months ago. 

“If you’re really uncomfortable, I will meet you at Planned Parenthood for your appointment,” Bodhi continues, when she doesn’t say anything for a few moments. “I would never  _ actually _ leave you hanging.”

“No, of course not! You would just shamelessly meddle in my love life on the day I’m having an outpatient medical procedure,” she says, even though she does feel better. There’s a reason Bodhi’s her best friend, after all.

“Well, you’ve always done very well under pressure,” he jokes, and she laughs before she can stop herself. 

“If this blows up in my face,” she says, just as she hears the knock on the door, “you’ll owe me forever.”

“I’m good with that,” Bodhi says, breezily. “Give Cassian a kiss for me.”

“Go to hell.”

“Text me if you need me. Love you. Bye!”

Jyn hangs up without responding, because she’s still in a mood with him, regardless of how good his intentions might have been. She starts to fidget with her hair before she realizes that’s stupid—Cassian already knows what he’s getting into—and goes for the door just as another knock echoes through the apartment. She undoes the lock and the deadbolt and the chain with clumsy fingers and opens the door to find Cassian there in what must be his casual weekend clothes and a heavy winter parka. He’s also, inexplicably, holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Are those flowers?” She asks, like an idiot, before she can stop herself. She clears her throat, trying to soften her tone and hide her surprise. “I mean—Did you bring me flowers?”

He gestures upwards with them, as if he’s just remembered they exist. “These?” He asks, glancing at them. “No, actually, these are for the other woman I’m accompanying to an abortion today.”

Jyn feels a smile start to form. “God, I hope that’s not true,” she says, before realizing it sounds kind of possessive. “I mean, for your sake. I wouldn’t want you to have to deal with this situation twice. That’s all.”

“It was a joke, Jyn.” He smiles, embarrassed, and then adds, “You’re the only person I’ve impregnated recently.”

“That you know of,” she replies, trying to keep things light, but he doesn’t take the hint.

“The only one,” he says, devastatingly sincere, instead of joking with her. Then, he hands her the bouquet.

She looks down at it, at a loss for words momentarily. “Did I even say ‘hello’ to you yet?” She asks the flowers.

He laughs. “You didn’t, but I figure you’ll get around to it eventually.”

“Hi, Cassian,” she says. “Would you like to come in?”

“Sure.”

She steps aside to let him into the apartment and looks again at the flowers, a bouquet of ranunculus in different shades of orange, from peach to a dark cayenne color. She doesn’t know much of anything about flowers—how much they cost or what the nice ones are—but she feels like she might have picked these out herself if she’d seen them at the store and that’s all it takes to make her nervous again. She leaves Cassian to hang up his coat on his own and heads into the kitchen. She’s standing in front of the sink, lost for what to do next, when he joins her.

“Do you have a vase?” He asks, after a moment.

Jyn shakes her head. “I don’t think so,” she admits, before she laughs at herself. “Sorry. It’s just—No one’s ever bought me flowers before.”

“No one?”

“No. I’m going to kill them.”

Cassian blinks at her. “The….flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that seems rude. You barely know them.”

“Not on purpose,” she says, closing her eyes to concentrate on not laughing again. “By neglect. I can’t take care of plants.”

“They’re basically dead already, Jyn. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m just saying, if this is some kind of test—”

“How would this be a test?”

“To see if I’m nurturing, or maternal, or—”

Cassian puts his hand on her back, gently, like he’s expecting her to shove him away at any second. “It’s not a test,” he says, carefully. “I thought we talked about this the other night…”

“We did, but—” she says, still staring at the flowers in her hands and unable to articulate what she’s thinking. “Why would you buy me flowers?”

He shrugs, looking lost himself. “I just thought it would be nice. It is Valentine’s Day, after all, and I know you’re probably fine, but you seemed a little stressed about the appointment the other night. So, I thought I should do something to cheer you up, if I could, and then there was a florist on the way here, so it felt like a sign. I don’t know why, really, I just thought that it would be a nice thing to do. But if you don’t like them—”

“I didn’t say that,” she says, cutting him off.

“Oh,” he says, surprised. “Okay.”

“You didn’t have to bring me anything, though. I told you I don’t care about Valentine’s Day.”

“Well, I do.”

“Really?”

“Apparently,” he says, looking away. He clears his throat, obviously looking for a change of subject. “If you cut the ends off of those stems, I’ll find something you can use as a vase.”

“You’re just inviting yourself to rummage through my entire kitchen now?” Jyn asks, feigning offense even as she’s grabbing the scissors to follow his directions.

“That’s exactly what’s happening, yes.”

By the time she’s finished with the stems, Cassian is back by her side, filling up a clear plastic sports bottle he found in one of the cabinets. He takes the flowers from her and begins arranging them in the bottle, cutting a few of them shorter so they sit better. He sets the whole thing on the counter to admire his handiwork and looks at her for approval.

“You can’t be serious,” she says.

“Why not?” 

“It’s a water bottle!”

“So?”

“It looks silly.”

“It’s the best I could do on short notice,” he says, with a shrug. “Next time I buy you flowers, I’ll make sure to get you a proper vase too.”

“Next time?” Jyn asks, faintly.

“Yeah. Next time.” He pulls a dead leaf off of one of the stems and refuses to meet her eye.

“Cassian,” she says, interrupting him. “What are you doing?”

“Me? I’m clearly making an idiot out of myself.”

She puts a hand on his arm to get him to look at her. “You’re not, I promise. I just don’t know what’s happening right now.”

“I think you do, actually,” he says, carefully, like he’s afraid to keep going. He does anyway, though, after a moment. “I think you know what it means when someone shows up at your place with flowers and threatens to do it again in the near future. And I hope you know what it means that I want to go to this doctor’s appointment with you today. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’m being very clear with my intentions.”

Jyn shakes her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. “You’re right. You are being clear. I’m just confused because—why would you want to date me?”

“Because I like you.”

“Right, but—and I know that I’m not actually supposed to do this, because it’s not sexy or confident or whatever, but—I don’t understand why,” she says. “I mean, I’ve made every step of this as difficult as possible for you and I wasn’t even trying to put you off. That’s just what I’m like in a relationship. So, why would you want to put yourself through that?”

Cassian finally stops fiddling with the flowers and really looks at her. “Right,” he says, his tone caught somewhere between offended and disbelieving. “Who would ever want to date someone like you? You’re just smart and creative and sarcastic, not to mention beautiful. It doesn’t make any sense why I’d want to be with you.”

“Cassian…”

He doesn’t let her interrupt, though. “No, actually, you know what? I don’t think you’re asking the right question here.”

“I’m not?” Jyn asks, baffled. She’s never really seen him upset like this before, aside from the glimpse of it she got the other night when he came over and she inadvertently hurt his feelings.

“No, you’re not,” he replies. “I don’t think I need to provide an itemized list of everything I like about you. I think you should take my word for it that I’m not trying to date you because I’m confused, or because I feel obligated to you in any way, or because I just don’t know you well enough. I’m not desperate and I don’t have low standards, either, in case that’s what you’re trying to tell yourself. I want to date you because I think we could be good together and because I want to get to know you better.

“So, clearly, I know what I want. The important question, then, is: what do you want, Jyn?”

“I don’t know!” She responds immediately, without thinking, startled by how certain he is and how earnest. She knows, though, that answer won’t actually satisfy him. More importantly, he also just deserves a real answer at this point, even if the idea of trying to put how she feels into words makes her queasy. Either that or it’s just her pregnancy rearing its ugly head again. 

She takes a moment, once she’s had her little outburst, to really think about it and she sighs before she dives in. “I’m sorry, it’s just—All of this has been so confusing, from the very beginning. I just wanted to hook up with you one time, so I could put myself out there again and feel like somebody might actually want me. And it worked, but not in the way I thought it would. I thought it could just be a rebound, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, afterwards. I still can’t. 

“You put this idea into my head that I could have someone like you, someone who gives a fuck about me and what I want, who respects me and likes me, even though I’m always late and my apartment is always a mess and I don’t have a 401K or whatever, and that scared the hell out of me, because it was just supposed to be a casual, one-time thing. But I knew, after the first time, that it couldn’t really be like that between us. I knew you’d give me anything I asked for, but I just wasn’t ready to ask for more. Which is why I never called, afterwards.”

“What about now?” He asks. He doesn’t sound hurt, or like he’s judging her; he just wants to know. “Are you ready now?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, carefully. “I’m not sure I’m in a place where I can be someone’s girlfriend again just yet. I’m still dealing with a lot of things that came up during the breakup. And it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to wait, or put up with that, when none of it is your fault.”

“I don’t have to ‘put up with’ you, Jyn. I like you, remember?”

“Even now? When I’m being confusing?”

He smiles. “Even now.”

“What if we made a compromise?”

“We don’t have to do this. Really,” he says, shaking his head. “I understand your reservations and I respect them, even if I hate the idea that your idiot of an ex-boyfriend gets to ruin anything else for you after he’s already put you through so much.”

Jyn just blinks at him, confused, though she’s not sure why. Nobody likes her ex, but hearing Cassian talk about it is somehow different. They barely knew each other when she was dating Reece. She didn’t think he would have left much of an impression. “You think he’s an idiot?” She asks.

“I think he’s the stupidest person to ever live,” he says, with more conviction than Jyn’s ever heard from him, which is saying something. Cassian tends to have strong opinions about most things. “Not only because he treated you so terribly, but also because he let you go in the end.”

“Why didn’t you ever mention this before?”

Cassian shrugs, helplessly, like she’s backed him into a corner. “Well, I was trying very hard to seem like a normal guy who  _ didn’t _ have a crush on you, and bashing your ex-boyfriend seemed like an easy way to show my hand, so I avoided talking about it with you.”

She can’t help it, at that point. She just needs to get this out of her system, she rationalizes, as she puts her arms around his neck to drag him down for a kiss. It’s just that not kissing him was getting so annoying, when he was just standing there being so handsome and patient and perfect. He leans forward, chasing her a bit, but she pulls away after only a moment.

“I mentioned a compromise…” she says, watching him cautiously.

“I’m listening,” he replies, with his eyes still closed.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to be in a relationship again—not yet, I mean. But I do know that sleeping with you didn’t get rid of the feelings I have for you, and ignoring them and you for two months didn’t help either.” She bites her lip. “I’m sorry for that, by the way.”

“I know,” he says, quietly, pressing his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry too. I should have—”

Jyn puts her fingertips to his lips to stop him. “Wait,” she says. “Let me finish.”

He nods, but says nothing.

“Clearly, I can’t ignore my feelings for you, or pretend I’m just interested in having casual sex with you. So, what if we did just  _ date _ ? We could hang out and get to know each other better without worrying about what we’re calling it or what kind of future we might have.” She moves her hand to grasp at his shirt, as if that will somehow convey her sincerity. “I know that probably sounds like I’m letting you down easy, but you have to believe me when I say that’s not it.”

“Okay.”

“I just really need to take things slow right now because I—Wait, did you just say, ‘okay’?” she asks.

“Yes,” Cassian says with a small smile, the one she’s starting to recognize he always has when she’s acting like an idiot, as if he’s charmed by it instead of annoyed.

“What, just like that?”

“Yes, just like that. Listen, I have my fair share of trust issues, too. I’m not going to pretend I don’t. So, I can’t say that I really believe you’re going to wake up one day and want to be in a relationship with me, because that’s just not how my brain works. But I really  _ want _ to believe that and, if you do change your mind or decide this doesn’t work for you, I’ll still have gotten more time with you than if I walked away right now. So, yes, I agree to your terms.”

“Well, good,” Jyn says, anti-climatically. She really thought that he was going to require much more convincing. She’s not sure what to do with herself now. “Uh, actually, that’s great. Because I got us reservations at this really cool place this morning. I think you’re really going to like it.”

He lifts an eyebrow at her, thinking it over for a second before it clicks. “Are you talking about Planned Parenthood?”

“Yep.”

He shakes his head. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, even as he leans in to kiss her again. She doesn’t bother thinking of something clever to say in response, she just pulls him in closer. It’s every bit as good as she remembers, for all they’re just standing in her kitchen and she’s wearing a ratty old sweater and about to get an abortion. She lets herself get swept away in it, despite the very practical conversation they’ve just had and all of her concerns, and allows the possibility that she might get this, Cassian kissing her and holding her face in his perfect hands and making her feel warm and melt-y, for a long time yet.

After a few moments like that, Jyn pulls back suddenly as she remembers something. “When I said I wanted to ‘take things slow,’ I hope you know I didn’t mean it sexually,” she says, adamant. “I think we should have sex again as soon as possible. With protection this time, obviously.”

Cassian laughs, and she can feel it as he kisses her neck. “Thank you for the clarification.”

“So you agree?”

“That we should have sex soon? Or about using protection?” He asks, and then shakes his head. “What am I saying? The answer is ‘yes, absolutely’ to both of those things.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“We do have to get to your appointment, though.”

“Well, clearly I didn’t mean  _ right now _ .”

He laughs again. “I know,” he says, looking so enamored of her just then that it renders her momentarily speechless. She’s not sure anyone’s ever looked at her like that before. “But my point stands.”

“Yes, okay, you’re right,” she says, trying her best to sound annoyed with the reminder, for all that she’s actually stupidly happy. She kisses him again, just because she can, and it successfully distracts them for another few moments until Cassian pulls back with a groan.

“Jyn, seriously…”

“I did mention that I’m always late, right? This is just something you’re going to have to get used to.”

“I’m calling us a cab,” he says, stepping back as he gets his phone out of his pocket. He waves a finger at her, trying so hard to look stern that she can only laugh in response. “No more distractions.”

“A cab? What are we, Rockefellers?”

“No, but we’ll be late otherwise,” he replies, already dialing. “And besides, I’m not going to be cheap on our first date.”

“I was kidding about that,” Jyn says, stepping close enough that she can toy with the string from the hood of his sweatshirt rather than look into his eyes. “We do  _ not _ have to consider this our first date.”

He reaches out with his free hand to run a thumb over her cheekbone. “It’s too late for that,” he says, while he waits for someone at the other end of the line to pick up. “I’m already considering it. Go get your jacket.”

She gives him a small salute, which she’s immediately embarrassed of, but that same fond look passes over his features again before she turns away. Her nerves about the appointment come back when she’s alone in her room, putting on her coat and getting ready to leave. She knows it’s perfectly routine, just an outpatient procedure, but she can’t help but worry that something totally unexpected will go wrong. And now she has to worry about Cassian being around afterwards, and what she’ll say or do and how it might scare him off completely.

That fear lasts only until the moment she comes out of her room to find him waiting for her by the front door. His eyes light up when they see her, there’s just no other way to describe it, and the nerves suddenly feel more like anticipation than dread. This is their first date, she reminds herself, unorthodox though it may be. She smiles back, still a little uncertain but trying to hold onto the idea that this could be good, that this thing between them could work.

“Shall we?” He asks, like they’ve got reservations at the Plaza and not an appointment at Planned Parenthood, and holds out his hand to her. She takes it and, for that moment, she doesn’t even have to try to feel certain about this. She just does.


	6. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> one year later

Jyn wakes up alone, which is surprising. It’s Saturday, so Cassian doesn’t have to work and he normally sleeps in like a teenager on the weekends, a habit she’d found hilarious at first. She would have figured him for an early riser, always up at the crack of dawn to work on some project or other, but more often than not, she’s up before him, sketching in bed until he finally wakes up. It was endearing, really, especially after she’d spent so much time thinking he was this perfectly responsible adult, to realize he had quirks just like anyone else, and not just the saintly or admirable kind, like how he can never leave his job at the office or how invested he gets in local elections no one else has even heard of. Being alone in bed on the weekend is unusual for her now that she's adjusted to his habits, though, and when she checks the clock on the bedside table, it’s only just past nine, which elevates this situation from weird to concerning. Even if he’s awake at this hour, he’s never out of bed by now. She throws off the covers and immediately regrets it when the cold air hits her all at once. Cassian better have a good reason for making her get out of bed to look for him, because she’d much rather stay under the cocoon of blankets all day.

For all Jyn’s concern, the mystery of his whereabouts is easily solved. She can hear him tinkering around in the kitchen before she turns the corner and sees him standing there, measuring flour into a mixing bowl. There’s ingredients scattered in front of him, and a container of strawberries sitting open on the part of the counter Jyn leans her hip against to watch him. She can smell coffee brewing too.

“Good morning,” she says, smiling at him.

He must be truly distracted, because he actually jumps at the sound of her voice. Normally, he’s pretty difficult to startle. “Jyn,” he says, like he’s somehow surprised to find her in his apartment. “You’re up early.”

“Not as early as you,” she replies. “What’s all this?”

“Uh, it’s…nothing.”

“Try again.”

Cassian sighs, defeated. “It’s for you. Well, it’s for us. For our anniversary.”

“What?”

“I was going to make you breakfast for our anniversary. It was going to be a surprise, but you woke up earlier than I expected.”

“It’s not our anniversary,” Jyn says, flatly.

He looks at her with concern. “Yes, it is,” he says, carefully. “We started dating a year ago.”

“That can’t be true. It can’t be a year already.”

“Well, it’s pretty easy to remember, since our anniversary is Valentine’s Day.”

Jyn groans and buries her face in her hands. “I’m the worst girlfriend in the history of the world.”

“That’s not true.”

“I forgot our anniversary  _ and _ Valentine’s Day, Cassian! That’s awful!”

“I should have reminded you,” he says, like this is his fault somehow. “I just got caught up with the idea of surprising you with breakfast and I didn’t want to spoil it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He waves her apology away stiffly. “It’s okay. Really. You told me you weren’t into Valentine’s Day when we started dating. I didn’t expect anything.”

“I didn’t even know you counted today as our anniversary!”

“When else would it be?”

Jyn gestures emphatically at nothing in particular. “I don’t know, maybe  _ not _ the day I got an abortion?”

“But that was our first date.”

“Most people wouldn’t find that romantic.”

“Most people would be wrong, then,” he says with a shrug, as he continues measuring out flour. “I thought it was very romantic.”

Jyn thinks back to that day, which was somehow a year ago. It feels simultaneously like it just happened and like it’s been an eternity since then. She thinks about Cassian bringing her flowers and holding her hand in the cab on the way to her appointment, about him keeping her calm in the waiting room by attempting a crossword in People Magazine that he clearly knew none of the answers to and asking for her help with all of them, and about him telling her later that he’d passed the time during her procedure by answering emails on his phone until his supervisor called and yelled at him for working when he’d called out for the day. She remembers him getting them a cab back to her place, even though she was still a little out of it from the anesthesia at the time, and that he made them tea in her tiny kitchen before convincing her to watch ‘The Sound of Music’ for the first time because it was his go-to sick day movie ever since he was a kid. 

(She found out later that it’s actually his grandmother’s favorite movie because apparently Captain Von Trapp reminds her of her late husband, or so she told Cassian when he was a kid. She was always the one who stayed with him if he was home sick from school, because both his parents still had to go to work, which is how her favorite movie became his sick day movie, but it took him having a nasty head cold three months into them dating before he admitted any of this to Jyn. Until then, she just thought he really liked musicals). 

She also remembers falling asleep after maybe thirty minutes of the movie, even though she really wanted to stay awake because Cassian had seemed so excited for her to see it. She drifted off to the feeling of him brushing his fingers gently through her hair and, when she woke up, it was the next morning and she was in her bed, which meant he’d carried her there from the couch and she’d been asleep the whole time, which was just unfair. He did have the good sense not to try to be chivalrous with her by sleeping on the floor or, worse, on the couch, so at least she’d gotten to wake up next to him, a pleasure she’d missed out on the first time they’d hooked up, when she’d fled immediately afterwards to avoid the very intimacy she found herself enjoying that day.

“You’re right,” she says, now, wrapping her arms around his middle. “It was romantic.”

Cassian lifts his arm to make room for her and then drapes it around her shoulders to pull her in closer. “But if you’d rather use a different day for our anniversary, we can. These can just be Valentine’s Day waffles.”

“You’re making me waffles?!” 

“Yes?” He replies, sounding wary, like he’s afraid he’s done something wrong. She shouldn’t have yelled. That was probably confusing for him.

“God, I love you,” she says, pulling him down for a kiss that’s meant to be quick but then she gets distracted because kissing him is still so much fun, even though she can do it whenever she wants now.

“They’re not—that hard—to make,” he says, or tries to, between kisses. He seems like he might try to argue the point further, which Jyn absolutely doesn’t want to happen, so she slips her tongue into his mouth and deepens their kiss, making him groan in a way she recognizes as a sound of defeat. A moment later, he throws his arms around her waist and lifts her up onto the counter, narrowly avoiding knocking over the mixing bowl in the process.

She parts her legs so he can step in between them and smiles when he kisses her again. This is the thing they’ve always been good at, even before they were dating. She had worried (clearly unnecessarily) that putting a label on it, being serious and exclusive, would ruin this, but if anything, it’s only gotten better with time. The efforts she’d made to keep him at a distance during their first time together only seemed more and more foolish as she got to know him better and saw the lengths he went to in order to satisfy her and make her happy. 

Her initial proposal, when they finally got their shit together and started dating, was for them to take things slow—at least, emotionally. When it came to their physical relationship, the doctor had told her she could have sex again as soon as she felt ready, which only took about a week after the abortion. Cassian was, of course, trying to be careful about it, not wanting to rush her when she’d been so clear about needing to ease her way back into dating. His gentlemanly willpower held out a little longer than she expected, leading Jyn to unapologetically sabotage their second attempt at a movie night together by making out with him the whole time and they’d ended up having sex right there on the couch. She can’t even remember what movie they were trying to watch that night. 

Then again, sex had always been the easy part for them; it was everything else that was tricky. Jyn’s rules—don’t put a label on it, don’t call it a relationship, just take things slow—had worked wonders in the beginning, but the longer they dated, the more it was clear they needed to call this  _ something _ . Jyn was surprised to find the idea didn’t terrify her as much as it once had and it only took one long weekend where Cassian was laid out by an awful cold and she made him (store bought and microwaved) soup while finally seeing ‘The Sound of Music’ all the way through (several times, in fact) before she realized that, whether she admitted it to herself or not, she was in a serious relationship. When Cassian finally recovered, he thanked her a little too profusely for taking care of him, and Jyn had been so flustered by his praise that she’d blurted out that she loved him before she could talk herself out of it. She would have been much more embarrassed if his face hadn’t lit up with the most beautiful smile as soon as she said it, and if he hadn’t kissed her senseless a moment later, saying he loved her too whenever they came up for air. 

She doesn’t tell him now that, if she had to pick a date for their anniversary, it would be then, the day she finally got over herself and told him she loved him. Because that would be sappy and embarrassing and also his idea seems much easier to remember for next year, anyway.

“I’m going to make this up to you,” she says, against his mouth, as his hands are creeping up under her t-shirt.

Cassian laughs. “Are you going to get me one of those giant stuffed bears from Duane Reade with the hearts that say ‘I Love You Bear-y Much’ on them?”

“If that’s what you want,” Jyn says, pulling back to look at him quizzically. “I was just going to let you fuck me on the kitchen counter, but it’s up to you.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

“Oh my god, you’d rather have the bear, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” he says, burying his face in her shoulder. “I already know you love me bear-y much. I don’t need anything to remind me.”

Jyn swats at him half-heartedly. “Then what’s the problem?”

“It’s just…this is where we prepare our food. It doesn’t feel sanitary to, well, you know…”

“Are you telling me that—on our anniversary of all days—you’d rather have boring, normal sex instead of weird, potentially unsanitary sex in the kitchen that you share with a roommate and where you’re currently preparing a meal?”

Cassian nods, looking like he’s putting on a contrite expression just for her sake. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, yes. Although, I don’t know if concern for Bodhi should even merit a mention. We both know he barely lives here anymore.”

Jyn does her best not to react to that, even though she knows Cassian is right. Bodhi is away for the weekend with Taidu and she’s fairly sure one or both of them are going to broach the topic of moving in together finally, since Bodhi spends most nights at Taidu’s studio apartment anyway, because it grants him access to a dog while also allowing him to spend more time alone with his boyfriend that he loves. If they move in together, though, that leaves Cassian without a roommate, which means he and Jyn will probably have to have a conversation about where their relationship is going. 

It’s sooner than she’d normally consider even the possibility of moving in with someone, but she barely tolerates her current roommate as it is and, more importantly, she could see herself living with Cassian. It’s almost too easy to picture. Before, with Reece, they’d hit the two-year mark and she’d told herself that living together was the next logical step but it hadn’t been because she’d truly wanted it. It was just something people in relationships were supposed to do when they’d been together that long. Now, though, their circumstances might necessitate the conversation, but her excitement outweighs her feeling of obligation. It doesn’t stop her from being terrified that Cassian will think it’s too soon and she’ll scare him off, though, but they can burn that bridge when they get to it. There’s nothing to worry about until Bodhi comes home with news.

“And besides,” Cassian continues, interrupting her thoughts, “I wouldn’t call it boring to have sex with my beautiful girlfriend in our soft bed on our anniversary. That’s basically the dream.”

“Sap,” Jyn says, poking his cheek with her index finger and ignoring the way her heart races at how he thinks of the bed as  _ theirs _ . “Can we at least bring the strawberries with us? Or is that too wild for you?”

“What are they gonna do, watch?”

“No, dumbass, we’re going to eat them. You know… _ sensually _ .”

“You can just admit you’re hungry,” he says, planting a kiss on her forehead.

“That too,” she says, smiling. He hands her the carton before he unceremoniously lifts her off the counter. She thinks he’s going to put her down at first, but he seems content to carry her all the way back to the bedroom. She makes an inelegant noise of surprise when he tosses her on the bed, which just makes him laugh in response.

“What? I thought you were worried our sex life was getting boring,” he says, unapologetically proud of himself.

She tosses the strawberries onto the side table, so her hands are free to grab him by the front of his shirt and pull him in for a kiss. “I promise I’m going to remember our anniversary next year,” she says, as he settles on top of her. “You’re not going to be able to move for Duane Reade bears.”

She expects him to smile at that, to laugh it off and kiss her again, but instead he stills. His eyes search her face as his hand comes to cup her cheek. “Next year?” He asks, his tone careful.

Jyn feels her heartbeat stutter in her chest—the old nerves and worries haven’t abandoned her completely, after all—but she still manages a smile before she leans in and kisses him again. “Next year,” she says, firmly. She can’t be sure, of course, but she has faith they’ll make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! Thank you so much to all of you who commented and left kudos and bookmarked and subscribed along the way! I appreciate all of you so much and I promise to catch up on responding to comments soon!! <3


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